Most of us, if asked, would say funeral directors must be licensed. It feels like common sense. Looking after someone who has died is one of the most important, most sensitive jobs there is. Surely someone is keeping an eye on how it’s done?
Sadly, in England and Wales, no one is.
Back in 2019, the Competition and Markets Authority asked the public a simple question. Almost seven in ten people (69%) thought funeral directors were required to be registered and licensed. However, the truth is: they don’t. There are no compulsory qualifications and no routine inspections.
There are no national rules about how the deceased must be looked after once they’re in a funeral director’s care.
That’s a huge gap between what families expect and what the law actually requires. And it’s one we think it’s time to close.
Who can become a funeral director?
Vets are regulated. So are physiotherapists, driving instructors, estate agents and college lecturers. Funeral directors are not.
To set up as a funeral director in England or Wales, someone only needs to register a business. That is all. Without any formal training, qualification or licence, they can then:
- Collect someone who’s died from a hospital, hospice or home
- Keep them on their premises (in whatever conditions they choose)
- Prepare the body
- Arrange the service and take the person to the crematorium or cemetery.
For instance, there’s no requirement to keep the deceased in climate-controlled, chilled mortuaries, or for someone to rest peacefully in their own, new coffin right from the start (Pure Cremation does both of these things – just to put your mind at ease).
There are well-known trade bodies – you may have seen their logos – like the NAFD, BIFD and SAIF. They offer membership and publish helpful guidance. But they aren’t regulators. They can’t insist a funeral home has refrigeration. They can’t force DBS checks on staff. And they can’t stop someone trading if things go badly wrong.
So when families choose a funeral director, believing they’ve chosen a regulated professional, they’re trusting someone whose only legal duty is the same as any other small business owner. Most funeral directors are decent, dedicated people who do this work with real care. But regulation exists to ensure everyone in a profession works to a required standard or above.
Why funeral regulation matters
Over the last few years, a series of cases has shown exactly what can go wrong when there are no rules and no inspections.
- The David Fuller case (2021). An NHS mortuary worker was found to have abused the bodies of at least 101 women and girls over many years. The public inquiry that followed has called for urgent, independent regulation of the funeral sector.
- The Hull funeral home (2023). Police found 35 bodies and a quantity of mismanaged ashes at a single funeral home. Families waited a long, painful time to find out what had happened to the people they loved.
- Sir Jonathan Michael’s report (2024). His interim review described the current set-up as “an unregulated free-for-all” and warned that poor practice in the funeral sector may continue unchecked without change.
- Elkin & Bell (2025). A funeral director was convicted of fraud that included keeping bodies in an unrefrigerated room for more than a month.
Each of these stories involves families who, quite reasonably, had trusted someone to look after their husband, wife, mother, father or child. In each case, there was no inspector, no regulator, no licence – and no one checking until it was already too late.
Scotland has shown it can be done
On 1 March 2025, Scotland brought in proper rules for funeral directors. There’s now a code of practice they must follow. Independent inspectors can visit. And – crucially – there’s a legal requirement to keep the deceased refrigerated, in clean, secure facilities, between 4 and 7 degrees, with each person given their own space.
Funeral directors in Scotland now have to tell families exactly where their loved one is being kept. That might sound obvious, but it hasn’t always been the case. Families have sometimes assumed a loved one was resting at the high-street funeral home they visited, when in fact the body was being stored somewhere else entirely.
Scotland’s rules may not be perfect. But they’re proof that sensible, proportionate regulation is possible. England and Wales are now the odd ones out.
Why “let the profession regulate itself” isn’t enough
Some in the funeral profession have suggested what’s called “co-regulation” – meaning the trade would help write and police its own rules. We understand why that sounds reasonable, but there are three problems with it.
First, it isn’t independent. And independence is the whole point of a regulator. The David Fuller inquiry is expected to recommend an independent statutory body for exactly this reason.
Second, no single trade body represents most funeral directors. SAIF, for example, has around 1,000 members. That’s fewer than one in five funeral directors in England and Wales. SAIF also require their members to only offer Golden Charter funeral plans (SAIF owns Golden Charter) so clearly is not impartial.
Third, recent events show that a logo on the door isn’t a guarantee. A regulator needs to answer to the public, not to the profession.
What good regulation would look like
Drawing on what Scotland has done, and building on it where we can, these are the eight things we’re calling for:
- An independent regulator, set up in law, run in the public interest, not by the profession.
- A licence for every funeral home and every premises. No exceptions. No hidden back-rooms or unregistered storage units.
- At least one inspection a year, plus unannounced visits – with real powers to step in if something isn’t right.
- Proper training and DBS checks for every member of staff who comes into contact with a loved one or a grieving family. That includes part-time and casual staff.
- Refrigeration as a legal requirement, along with clean, safe facilities for everyone in a funeral director’s care.
- CCTV in mortuary areas, with proper safeguards for dignity, so that what happened in the Fuller case can’t happen again.
- Clear digital records, following every person from the moment they are collected to the moment their ashes are returned or they are laid to rest.
- A public register of licensed funeral directors, so families can check, easily, that the home they’re considering is in good standing.
To pay for it, we think the fairest approach is a simple annual fee per premises, which matches the cost of regulation to the work of regulation. A phased, three-year rollout would give good funeral directors plenty of time to adjust (most of them already do much of this anyway).
Your questions, answered
Are funeral directors regulated in the UK?
In England and Wales, no. There’s no legal requirement for qualifications, inspections, or facility standards. Trade bodies exist, but membership is voluntary.
Do funeral directors have to keep the deceased in refrigerated facilities?
In England and Wales, no. There’s no legal requirement. In Scotland, yes – refrigeration in clean, temperature-controlled facilities is now mandatory.
Who inspects funeral homes in England and Wales?
No one, as a matter of routine. Concerns are usually only looked into after a complaint, a police report, or something going badly wrong.
What can I ask my funeral director now to feel reassured?
A few simple questions go a long way:
- Where exactly will my loved one be kept?
- Is that facility refrigerated?
- Who has access to the room they’ll be in?
- Are your staff trained, and have they been DBS-checked?
A good funeral director will answer clearly and without hesitation. If the answers feel vague or evasive, that tells you something important.
The call
Most people assume funeral directors are already regulated because, honestly, it’s hard to believe they wouldn’t be. That assumption is holding up public trust in a system that has, in places, let families down.
The case for change is now hard to argue with. The public expects it, the inquiries support it, and the recent scandals demand it. And Scotland has shown it works.
We’re asking the UK Government, Parliament and the funeral profession to bring in independent regulation of funeral directors in England and Wales – without further delay. Families deserve the protection they already believe they have.
Why is Pure Cremation getting involved?
It’s a fair question. We’re a funeral provider ourselves, so why are we calling for more rules to be put on our own profession?
The simple answer is that we believe families deserve the protection they already assume they have – and we’ve been working that way from the start. We own and run our own climate-controlled mortuaries and our own state-of-the-art crematoria, so we know exactly where every person in our care is, at every moment.
All of our staff are trained, DBS-checked and held to the standards we’d want for our own families. We have CCTV, hospital-style tracking, keep proper digital records, and we invest heavily in the facilities that make dignified care possible.
We were one of the first funeral plan providers to seek authorisation from the Financial Conduct Authority, and we remain the only provider to reinsure our trust – steps we took voluntarily, because we believed the sector needed higher standards long before anyone was making us do it. We also gave evidence to the David Fuller Inquiry, and we produce the Cost of Funerals Index, the most comprehensive research into funeral costs in Britain.
Regulation, done well, wouldn’t hold good funeral directors back. It would simply make sure that every family in every part of the country can expect the same standard of care, whoever they choose. That’s something worth standing up for – and we’ll keep doing so until it happens.
