UK Social Security and Child Support Commissioners' Decisions

[1998] UKSSCSC CIS_16192_1996 (05 January 1998)


 


DGR/CW/ZA/14

Commissioner's File: CIS/16192/1996

SOCIAL SECURITY ADMINISTRATION ACT 1992

SOCIAL SECURITY CONTRIBUTIONS AND BENEFITS ACT 1992

APPEAL FROM DECISION OF SOCIAL SECURITY APPEAL TRIBUNAL ON A QUESTION OF LAW

DECISION OF THE SOCIAL SECURITY COMMISSIONER

1. For the reasons set out below, the decision of the social security appeal tribunal given on 13 May 1996 is not erroneous in point of law, and accordingly this appeal fails.
2. This is an appeal by the claimant, brought with the leave of the tribunal chairman, against the decision of the social security appeal tribunal of 13 May 1996.
3. On 21 November 1995 the adjudication officer decided that the claimant was not entitled to a payment from the Social Fund in respect of the funeral of her late husband, because the value of an insurance policy was in excess of the allowable cost of the funeral. In due course, the claimant appealed to the tribunal who, whilst agreeing that the allowable costs could be increased by £95 to take into account the cost of a religious incumbent and the additional expenses arising from the requirements of the deceased's religious faith, decided that the increased allowable sum was still below the proceeds of the insurance policy, and accordingly they dismissed the appeal.
4. The claimant's representative argued before the tribunal that the tribunal should allow the cost of the burial of the deceased's ashes following cremation. The sum involved came to £120 made up of £25 for the plot, £75 for the Parish Council's costs, and £20 for the incumbent's costs. The tribunal rejected that contention, taking the view that regulation 7(4)(a) and (b) of the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (General) Regulations 1987 [S.I. 1987 No 481] (in the form in which it then was) should be read disjunctively, i.e. only the cost of the cremation or the cost of internment was there provided for. The claimant now contends in his appeal to the Commissioner that the tribunal erred in point of law in adopting that interpretation of the regulation.
5. Regulation 7(4) of the Social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (Regulations) 1987, in the form in which it was at the relevant time, read as follows:-

"7(4) In addition to the costs specified in paragraph (3), the amount of a funeral payment shall include an amount sufficient to meet -

(a) in the case of an interment, the necessary costs of a new or re-opened grave and of the interment; or

(b) in the case of a cremation -

(i) the cremation fee, including medical references;

(ii) the cost of any necessary registered medical practitioner's certificates;

(iii) the amount of a registered medical practitioner's fee for the removal of a heart pace-maker; and

(c) in either case -

(i) the cost of necessary documentation;

(ii) the fee of a Minister of religion;

(iii) any additional expenses arising from a requirement of the religious faith of the deceased, but not in excess of £75.

......."

Manifestly, a claimant is entitled to the cost of either an internment, i.e. a burial, or a cremation. The claimant cannot receive a payment which covers both.

6. In the present instance the deceased was cremated, and his ashes subsequently interred in a burial plot. I have considered the question whether it might be contended that the burial of the ashes was an integral part of the cremation, in that the cremation could not be said to be complete until the body of the deceased had been disposed of in its entirety. However, I think that is giving an artificially strained meaning to the word cremation. In the shorter Oxford English Dictionary cremation is defined as "the reduction of a corpse to ashes in lieu of interment". The disposal of the ashes is no part of the cremation process. Of course, if the ashes are merely allowed to blow away at the crematorium, no significant additional cost will be incurred. Moreover, if they are collected and scattered at some other place, presumably the cost will be so slight as not to assume any real importance. But I can see that where it is desired, as is sometimes the case, to bury the ashes, some significant cost will arise. Unfortunately for the claimant, the regulations have simply not provided for this contingency. The cost of interring ashes in a burial plot is something lying outside the orbit of the regulations.
7. Accordingly, the tribunal had no option but to reach the conclusion they did. It follows that I must dismiss this appeal.

(Signed) D G Rice

Commissioner

(Date) 5 January 1998

Commissioner's File No: CIS/16192/1996

Appellant's Name: E Newberry

This decision is starred because it decides that there is no provision in the social Fund Maternity and Funeral Expenses (Regulations)1997 for a payment to cover the cost of interring ashes in a burial plot.

This would appear to remain true for the Regulations in their current Form.

DGR