ITV’s Tonight Response

GENERAL MANAGER – FUNERAL DIVISION
HEART OF ENGLAND CO-OPERATIVE SOCIETY

The Heart of England Co-operative Society is concerned to learn of the practices undertaken by some UK funeral directors, as highlighted in ITV’s Tonight programme aired on Thursday 1^st October.

This is in no way reflective of the industry as a whole and indeed it is practices such as these that bring our profession into disrepute – in no way do we condone these actions.

Although we trade as The Co-operative Funerals we are an independent business separate from the national Co-operative Group. Our Society is a regional co-operative covering Coventry, Warwickshire, south Leicestershire, and Northamptonshire only.

Earlier this year the Heart of England Co-operative Society became the first funeral provider in the UK to sign up to the new national Fair Funerals pledge which advocates transparent pricing practices and payment terms, reducing the risk of funeral poverty among client families.

As part of our commitment to Fair Funerals we display full details of costs and payment terms in our brochure and on our website, so our client families know exactly what to expect before entering into an agreement.

Also, for many years we have been transparent with our prices, so our client families receive no surprises. These prices are fully broken down and displayed on our website, so our client families can be fully aware of them even before picking up the phone or entering in to one of our locations to speak to our colleagues.

We pride ourselves on the service we offer. Although we have never claimed to be the cheapest funeral provider in the area, we believe we offer excellent value for money with a service that is second to none and facilities that are generally far better than most.

Our Society has been established for more than 185 years and we attribute our longevity and success to our values and principles.

These values and principles are also supported by our client families who have earned us the reputation of one of the country’s highest rated funeral directors on popular consumer website TrustPilot, scoring 4.8 out of 5 among 742 client reviews.

Darryl Smith

General Manager