Provision and maintenance of cemeteries and/or crematoria. Information on location, opening hours and any regulations is provided.

A civil funeral is a celebration reflecting the wishes of the deceased and their family. It is a personal and dignified tribute created by a professional celebrant who works closely with the family or executor and funeral director. The celebrant will aim to create a highly personal ceremony with the help of family and/or friends -recounting the person's experiences, attributes and qualities using music, poetry, readings and personal anecdotes. The civil funeral may be held anywhere except religious buildings and churches. The ceremony is appropriate for cremation or burial in a non-religious burial ground.

Exhumation of both buried and cremated remains may require a licence. In England and Wales a Home Office licence is generally required. An Environmental Health Officer must be present at the exhumation and supervises the event to ensure that respect for the deceased person is maintained and that public health is protected. In Scotland when a body is required to be exhumed the order must be at the controls of the Procurator Fiscal. The Divisional Officer of the Bereavement Service is in attendance to ensure that the operators carrying out the task are supervised accordingly.

In cemeteries run by the local authority citizens may buy a grave plot usually for a period of up to 50 years. There may be conditions attached to the purchase according to the type of grave i.e. whether a memorial can be placed on the grave etc.

Memorials may be erected on graves which have exclusive rights of burial. Applicants must contact the council with exact details of the construction of the memorial, the method of erection and the inscription. Permission from the council to erect the memorial is required before the memorial is erected.

The mortuary service handles deaths that have been referred to the coroner or deaths where no death certificate can be issued.

Provision of a community or municipal funeral service at fixed cost for local residents.

Where someone dies and their burial or cremation is to take place abroad a coroner can give permission for a body to be moved out of England or Wales. The country to which the body is to be repatriated may have regulations which the coroner must adhere to such as the provision of a cadaver certificate.

If a death occurs abroad, the death should be registered according to the local regulations of that country. To bring a body back to England or Wales either the death certificate or an authorisation for the removal of the body from the country of death is needed. The registrar in the district in which the funeral is to take place has to issue a 'Certificate of No Liability to Register'. You can bring a body back to Scotland once you have got the death certificate and an authorisation for the removal of the body from the country of death from the appropriate authorities. To bring the body into Scotland you will need either an authenticated translation of a foreign death certificate or a death certificate issued in England, Wales or Northern Ireland, depending on the place of death.