Family's two-month funeral delay

People on benefits receive help to pay for family funerals

A family claims it has been forced to wait two months to bury a relative because of a delayed UK government funeral support payment.

The Department for Work and Pensions (DWP) social fund helps families on benefits pay for funerals.

The family from Newtown, Powys, is said to be heartbroken, while their funeral director says the application system is too complex.

The DWP said in Wales it took just 14 days on average to process a payment.

So far this year, there have been 1,800 applications for funeral payments in Wales with the family's own application exceeding the DWP's 16-day target. However, the department refused to discuss individual cases.

The payment is worth about £700 and is there to help people on low incomes or benefits to pay for funerals arrangements.

It's very frustrating for the family concerned Funeral director Clive Pugh

The family from Newtown, who wish to remain anonymous, said they applied to the DWP five days after their elderly relation's death on 13 August.

They want to bury their loved one in Shrewsbury, Shropshire, where the family once lived, but the funeral director has to be paid up front before the burial can take place.

Their funeral director, Clive Pugh, from Shrewsbury, said the application process was complex and people were means-tested.

Speaking on the family's behalf, Mr Pugh said: "This is not an uncommon problem. I know of four instances of this in the last five months.

"It's very frustrating for the family concerned. I have tried to help them with the form, but it seems to be taking so long to process."

Fellow funeral director Aubrey Kirkham, who serves north Powys and Shropshire, said he knew of similar cases where people had been expected to wait weeks for the DWP payment.

"I think it's time the system was looked at," he added.

"The form social fund applicants have to fill in runs to numerous pages and they are all in purple, which makes it difficult for some to read."

'Inevitably slows'

The National Association of Funeral Directors (NAFD) agreed it took time to process social fund applications.

Spokesman Dominic Maguire, who is an undertaker in Glasgow, said families usually waited for between six to eight weeks for their payments to come through.

However, he said his association was not concerned and it was a process grieving families just had to go through.

The DWP said it did its utmost to clear applications as quickly as possible.

A spokesman added: "In order to process applications as smoothly as possible we do require certain information from the relative of the deceased, the details of which are provided along with the claim form.

"Unfortunately, on some occasions, it is necessary to go back to the relative to get information that may have been missing from the original application, which inevitably slows the process down a little."

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