I am writing to request information under the Freedom of Information Act. I am looking for information about public health funerals, also known as paupers’ funerals. I would be grateful if you could break down these figures year-by-year for the financial years 2020/21 (up to and including all of January 2021), 2019/20 and 2018/19.Please could you provide me with the following:

1. How many public health funerals were carried out by the council in the financial years 2020/21 (up to and including all of January 2021), 2019/20 and 2018/19? Please could you break this figure down year-by-year.
2. How much has the council spent on public health funerals it has carried out in the financial years 2020/21 (up to and including all of January 2021), 2019/20 and 2018/19? Please could you break this figure down year-by-year.
3. If possible, for those public health funerals carried out by the council in the financial years 2020/21 (up to and including all of January 2021) and 2019/20 please could the council state how many of those deceased individuals had Covid-19/coronavirus mentioned on their death certificate as one of the causes. Please could you break this figure down year-by-year.

A dataset for Funerals has now been set up on our Transparency pages and will be updated on quarterly basis (if required). Therefore we are refusing this request under Section 21 and 22 of the Freedom of Information Act. This information can be found on the following page and we would ask you to bookmark this page for future reference if you find it of interest;
https://www.wokingham.gov.uk/council-and-meetings/open-data/datasets-and-open-data/

The public interest test has been considered and as the information is updated periodically, and resource is better utilised elsewhere within the authority, it is not appropriate to create the dataset outside of the usual scheduled slot.

4.
a) Does the council allow family members or friends to attend public health funerals?
b) If not, why?
No, because national assisted burials take place if there is no known next of kin to manage their estate.

5.
a) In cases where the deceased person’s body is cremated for a public health funeral, does the council return ashes to the family or friends? If not, why not? Does the council charge to return ashes to family or friends of the deceased where a public health funeral has taken place?
b) If so, how much is charged and why?
No, because national assisted burials take place if there is no known next of kin to manage their estate.

6.
a) If possible, please can you provide figures disclosing whether the deceased person who was given a public health funeral was cremated or buried?
b) If the latter, please could you disclose whether they had their own grave or if they were buried in a shared grave.
See our publicly accessible dataset which details information where known/recorded.