In previous years PCCs received a fee in addition to the DBF when a funeral service took place at a crematorium or a cemetery. In 2019 this was £30.
For various reasons, the General Synod changed the statutory fee from 1 January 2020 so that all the fee now comes to the DBF, without a fee to a PCC.
Following representations from PCCs, the diocesan finance and scrutiny committee considered this change at its meeting in February and agreed a system to give most of the money parishes had previously received (£30) for crematorium or cemetery funerals, to parishes as a voluntary DBF grant. This was due to commence from 1 April but was overtaken by events and many PCCs are not currently sending fees into the DBF as per George Colville’s letter to treasurers on 24 March.
The process is likely to be when a parish administers the collection of the fees for the DBF they will be able to claim £30 for each such funeral as a DBF grant when sending fees on to the DBF (ie deducting them at source). If money comes directly without parish involvement (say from a retired clergy person) there will be no parish grant.
Retired clergy fees for such funerals will then be set at 80% of the statutory fee for the DBF net of the £30 claimable by parishes.
The DBF grant will be for the ministry of the parish as a whole and should be shown as a DBF unrestricted grant in PCC accounts.
Parishes should continue to charge for relevant direct expenses (such as clergy mileage) on top of the fee.
We will provide the necessary forms for claiming the fee in due course once the current situation allows for fees to start to be sent to the DBF again. We did however think parishes would like to be aware of this now given the current number of such funerals. Any parishes currently still sending in fees to the DBF should not deduct the £30s at this time.