National Association of Funeral Directors

The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) is an independent trade association. It boasts that it has the broadest membership within the funeral profession, including more than 3,200 funeral homes nationwide. It also oversees the funeral undertaking business.

History

In 1898 a group of funeral undertakers set up the British Institute of Undertakers to raise the status of the profession. This organisation ceased to exist in 1901 and in 1905 the British Undertakers Association was founded. In the same year it also adopted a new constitution when it changed the name again to the National Association of Funeral Directors.

The Association has been supporting funeral undertakers since 1905. Members enjoy a wide range of business support services.

The NAFD claims that its lion logo “is acknowledged as a 'kite mark' of quality assurance, guaranteeing the highest professional standards.

The NAFD states that it takes the lead in education and is also responsible for initiating professional development programmes. It claims to represent the funeral profession at all levels of Government in respect of legislation and campaigns on issues affecting not only funeral undertakers, but also the bereaved. They provide opinion to Parliamentarians, Government agencies and consumer groups on all funeral matters.

Members of funeral trade associations are not regulated by law. They operate their own voluntary codes of practice and principles. Also, there is no requirement in law that a funeral undertaker belongs to one of the two known associations in the UK which is the NAFD and The National Society of Allied & Independent Funeral Directors (SAIF).

Non-members are not subject to the codes.

In consumer terms, funeral undertakers are viewed as general traders of goods and services, and there is no legal requirement that they all offer the same company terms and conditions.

According to Geoff Caldwell of the NAFD, the terms and conditions published on the NAFD website, is an example template only, and is designed so the member company can simply edit this with their trading style. This raises the question of why all the members of NAFD are not held to a common code of practice, as is the case with many trade associations.

Bereavement Advice Centre

In partnership with ITC Legal Services, which says it is “the UK's largest probate provider”, the NAFD established the Bereavement Advice Centre, which calls itself a not-for-profit advice organisation. The Bereavement Advice Centre was formerly launched at the House of Commons in June 2007.

The Bereavement Advice Centre claims to have been welcomed by a variety of organisations from health, funeral, legal and advice sectors and their police committee oversees development of the service and includes clergy, hospital bereavement support, legal, care home, medical, funeral undertaking and local government representations.

An article in the Law Society Gazette in June 2009 drew attention to the “financial links” between the Bereavement Advice Centre and ITC Legal Services. The article says the link has “come under fire from solicitors”: The Bereavement Advice Centre publishes a website with the subtitle ‘What to do when someone dies’. Solicitors say that the organisation’s leaflets publicising a helpline promoting BAC’s commercial owner ITC Legal Services are also widely available at local authority registrars.

Under the heading ‘how to deal with probate’, the site lists four options, the second of which is ‘Use a specialist company such as ITC legal services’. It says the company is ‘competitive with solicitors on cost and less expensive than some banks’.

Patricia Wass, a partner at Plymouth firm Foot Anstey and chairwoman of the Law Society’s wills and equity committee, is quoted in the article as saying that she

is concerned that registrars ‘up and down the country’ are giving BAC’s leaflets to people when they report a death. This might imply that local authorities sanction BAC’s promotion of ITC’s commercial interests.

While the Bereavement Advice Centre does provide a link to ITC Legal Services, it does not provide any link to consumer agencies such as Consumer Direct, which gives people limited advice on how they can conduct their own funeral arrangements at low cost and in their own preferred way, coupled with consumer information intended to afford better protection to the funeral consumer.

ITC Legal Services has also signed a deal and agreed a third party arrangement with Barclays Bank. Jonathan Rayner, writing in the Law Society Gazette, describes the deal as follows:

As part of the arrangement, ITC has access to all of a deceased person’s Barclays Bank account details, and may refer the bereaved friend or relative to its own, commercially independent probate services division to arrange a home visit.

Rayner quotes Jeremy Groeger-Wilson, head of the wills and estates team at Kent firm Clarkson Wright & Jakes solicitors, as questioning ITC’s claims of price competitiveness: “He said he was also concerned that vulnerable people may feel under pressure to sign up to the probate service.”