Coroners and Justice Bill

There are individuals in our national life who carry out roles in which they make recommendations on standards and seek to influence those who have resources without necessarily commanding the resources themselves. A great deal of our inspectorate system works on such a principle. The Chief Coroner is not an inspector; he has a critical role. Nor is he a distributor of all the largesse available for the coroners service; quite the opposite, local authorities are the holders of the funds in those terms. They want to play their part in this. We are concerned that they are able to play their part and to meet standards of service which we want to focus a great deal more on the needs of the bereaved. That is the basis of the Bill.