DISGRUNTLED customers have lodged a series of grisly gripes about the way some funerals have been conducted in the past year.

Coffins and graves have been too small, ashes have been mislaid and funeral directors have been unsympathetic. The cost has been another cause for complaint.

The grumbles have been handled by the Funeral Ombudsman Scheme set up in 1994.

He has the power to award up to £50,000 in extreme cases, although to date awards have usually been below £1,000.

In most cases conciliation, which is usually carried out by the scheme administrator, ends in a satisfactory result.

Many complainants merely require an admission that the funeral was not conducted to the expected standard and want an apology.

Another area of concern is the different codes of practice operating within the funeral industry.

The number of complaints have been fairly small considering that more than 600,000 funerals take place each year in the UK.

In a 21-month period 96 complaints were received.

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