SAIF at the forefront of advocating for funeral directors with the government

Following the announcement on June 1^st, SAIF met with HM Treasury (HMT), the Financial Conduct Authority (FCA) and the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) on June 7^th. SAIF are at the forefront of advocating for funeral directors with the HMT, FCA and the CMA following their recent announcement of their market study and call for evidence in the funeral sector.

Members of SAIF’s National Executive Committee: Jeremy West, Terry Tennens and Sean Martin held meetings with the HMT and FCA to discuss pre-need funeral plan regulation and how best to ensure consumers are protected from unscrupulous sellers; as well as how we ensure any future regulatory scheme is not anti-competitive toward independent funeral directors across the UK.  SAIF’s delegation were welcomed by Mr Dan Rusbridge, Head of the Asset Management Team and Mr David Reeves of HM Treasury leading the market study.  SAIF will be submitting a National Society response by 1^st August 2018, and member firms are invited to contribute to the knowledge gathering.

SAIF’s delegation also met with Mr Roy Bartholomew and Mr Jason Pope from the FCA who expressed their desire to fully engage with the National Society and to see their members input throughout the market study and following the Minister’s decision to collaborate with SAIF in the implementation of the directives.

Subsequent to the meeting with the FCA and HMT, SAIF’s delegation met with six staff from the CMA including Project Director, Stephanie Canet to discuss the separate study on transparency on pricing, competition in the funeral sector and determining quality in pricing and online comparison websites.  SAIF will be inviting members to respond to this report directly with the CMA as well as a formal response from the National Society. The deadline for this ‘call for response’ is 28^th June 2018.

The CMA has asked that SAIF members be sampled through telephone interviews for their survey which will be randomly occur. We want to assure members that we are engaging these three UK Government departments with professionalism, timeliness and bring expertise from our Executive teams from across the UK!  Be assured SAIF is advocating for the best interests of our clients and member firms, that the qualities, expertise and service that independent funeral directors offer are second to none with their community engagement and customer service.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact SAIF Business Centre on 0345 230 6777.