Charter for the bereaved
It is the policy of Allerdale Borough Council to
offer high standards of care, consideration a wide variety of
options and real choices that are available to every one.
The need for high standards and meaningful choices is a view that
Allerdale Borough Council share with the Institute of Cemetery
and Crematorium Management (ICCM). The Institute is the
professional organisation representing local government officers
involved in the provision of cemetery related services.
The Charter for the bereaved was created by the ICCM in response
to the Citizens charter initiative. It was created with the
intention of generating interest as well as educating people on
bereavement matters. The intention was also to improve and update
cemetery services and related aspects of bereavement.
Allerdale has now adopted this Charter.
The charter defines the rights of every individual who
experiences bereavement.
The authority must offer the bereaved 35 basic 'rights' relating to
their service. These 'rights' include burial procedure, grave
choice, maintenance of grounds and grave digging, funerals' without
a funeral director and environmental issues.
The charter identifies targets for the council to continuously
improve their service for the bereaved.
The guiding principal for burial services within the charter is
that all burial facilities should be managed with competence and
efficiency to ensure the entire bereavement experience occurs
without error or insensitivity. This also includes meeting the
religious, secular, ethnic and cultural needs of the bereaved.
The purpose of the Charter is to improve funerals and we would
like to take your views into account. Anything that interests you
or leaves you with a feeling of disquiet is important to us.