Coroners' "charters"
The Home Office has published a "Model Coroners' Service Charter" which, according to a Home Office press release, 285/99, dated 20 September 1999, "aims to improve the consistency of local coroners' services". It is discussed further in a Home Office Circular, No 46 of 1999. In essence this model charter does nothing more than encourage local authorities to produce local charters to contain various matters which the Home Office thinks desirable. (The Home Office has no central power to manage the coroner's service nationally: see Who are Coroners responsible to?.)
It is a matter for each local authority what it does. But, in any event,
nothing in any such charter can change the law. or impose any legal obligation
on a coroner. Needless to say, central government is not providing any
money to local government to draft, negotiate, introduce or implement local
charters. Existing funding must cover it. Accordingly, any charter,
to the extent that it gives anything more than currently exists, must represent
a dilution of existing resources.
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Last modified: Monday, 09-Aug-2004 08:53:10 BST by: Malcolm Bishop