Death grant calculations

Request 741073624

Could you please explain the reasoning for the death grant and how the sum for this has been calculated?

Could you also advise how you ensure funeral directors do not take advantage of this amount and charge family extras?

Please advise what objectives or expectations you hold funeral directors to (such as things that families cannot do for themselves) when determining paying the death grant?

Response

The reason for the death grant is to assist with the costs of funeral arrangements.

Details of how the death grant is calculated are already publicly available on the gov.je website and in the Social Security (Jersey) Law 1974:

• Death Grant: single payment​ (gov.je)

• Social Security (Jersey) Law 1974​ (Jersey Law website)

Relevant provisions include:

• Article 13 – sets the standard weekly rate of benefit

• Schedule 1 – applies the standard rate as a multiplier to calculate single-payment benefits such as the death grant (4 × the standard rate of benefit)

As this information is already publicly available, Article 23 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 has been applied.

We do not hold any information on how funeral directors set their charges or how they may take account of the death grant when providing services. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 therefore applies, as no data is held.

By way of context, funeral directors in Jersey are privately owned businesses. They are responsible for setting their own prices for the services they provide, and families are free to choose which funeral director they wish to use and to agree the level of service before making payment.

Similarly, we do not hold information on the objectives or expectations applied to funeral directors when paying the death grant. Article 3 of the Freedom of Information (Jersey) Law 2011 also applies here. The grant is a fixed payment made to assist the claimant with the costs of funeral arrangements, and it is not linked to any particular services that may or may not be provided by funeral directors.

Articles applied

Article 3 - Meaning of “information held by a public authority”

For the purposes of this Law, information is held by a public authority if –

(a)     it is held by the authority, otherwise than on behalf of another person; or

(b)     it is held by another person on behalf of the authority.

Article 23 - Information accessible to applicant by other means

(1) Information is absolutely exempt information if it is reasonably available to the applicant, otherwise than under this Law, whether or not free of charge.

(2) A scheduled public authority that refuses an application for information on this ground must make reasonable efforts to inform the applicant where the applicant may obtain the information.

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