Funding provided to Caledonia Cremation: FOI release

FOI reference: FOI/18/01418
Date received: 13 May 2018
Date responded: 12 June 2018

Information requested

Information requested in relation to Scottish Government payments to Affordable Cremations Scotland (trading as 'Caledonia Cremation'), specifically:

1. How much funding did the Scottish Government give to the Company called Caledonia Cremation in its initial start-up costs?

2. Has the Scottish Government provided additional funding since the initial start-up and if the answer to this is yes, how much?

3. Will the Scottish Government provide further funding within the next 6 months?

4. Is there any plans to expand these services throughout Scotland and if so what areas are under consideration?

5. Is there any plans to provide this service to local authorities?

Response

Queries are answered in order below:

1. The Scottish Government provided Caledonia Cremation with a grant of £50,000 from the Local Government and Communications Directorate to cover the cost of acquiring two transit-type vans.

2. The Scottish Government's Social Innovation Fund provided £147,568.40 to the Community Renewal Trust to employ four staff posts for one year and one academic post for six months to test a new social enterprise model of affordable cremation. The Social Innovation Fund does not support organisational start-up costs.

3. The Scottish Government has no plans to provide further funding to Affordable Cremations Scotland in the next 6 months. This does not preclude the organisation from applying for future Scottish Government funding including Social Innovation Fund.

4. Any decision to expand services throughout Scotland would be for Caledonia Cremation to consider, not the Scottish Government.

5. Any decision to expand this service to Local Authorities would be for Caledonia Cremation to consider, not the Scottish Government.

About FOI

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