Agenda item

The Director: Governance and Partnerships submitted a report providing background and supporting information to enable a decision to be taken on whether to support the submission of an agreed joint business case from Lincolnshire County Council, North Lincolnshire Council and North East Lincolnshire Council to the Chief Coroner and Lord Chancellor to merge the two existing coroner areas to create a new, single Greater Lincolnshire coroner area, which would be coterminous with the three authorities. The business case was attached at appendix A. Other options were available to the including a shared Humberside coronial area, which were also considered in this report.

The Director in her report explained thatNorth East Lincolnshire Council was the lead authority for providing the coroner service for the coroner area of North Lincolnshire and Grimsby. The Senior Coroner was appointed by the local authority but worked to the Chief Coroner under the Ministry of Justice. To support the Senior Coroner, the local authority had a duty to provide coroners officers, administrative support and suitable accommodation for the Senior Coroner to undertake his/her duties to the area. There were currently 88 coroner areas in England and Wales. In 2016 updated guidance was issued by the Chief Coroner on the merger of coroner areas, which followed the recommendations in the Luke Review of 2003 that recommended: “the number of coroner areas, should be reduced in order to create sensibly sized coroner areas, taking into account the number of reported deaths, geographical size and types of coroner work in the area”.  The Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice had recently reiterated their long-term plan to reduce the number of coroner areas to 75 and to explore the opportunity of merger of coroner areas when the opportunity arose.

Consequently, in December 2018 the Senior Coroner for North Lincolnshire and Grimsby retired and the Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice confirmed that the current coroner area was too small to be maintained and that a merger with neighbouring coroner areas should be explored. Since that time the Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice had only agreed to the appointment of an acting Senior Coroner for the area but not a permanent replacement pending exploration of options for merger. Furthermore, following the departure of the Senior Coroner for Lincolnshire in September 2020 a similar embargo had been placed on the Lincolnshire Coroners Service by the Chief Coroner and Ministry of Justice in recruiting a permanent Senior Coroner.

Discussions had been held with both the Hull and East Riding Coroner Service (for which Hull City Council is the lead authority) to create a new ‘Humberside’ coroner area and latterly and more substantively, under the auspices of an officer project group, with the Lincolnshire Coroners Service (for which Lincolnshire County Council is the administering authority) to create a new ‘Greater Lincolnshire’ coroner area. At its Cabinet meeting on 23 November 2020, Hull City Council resolved to make an application to the Chief Coroner for the merger of the two current coroner areas that covered the area for the Humber, namely the East Riding and Hull area and the North Lincolnshire and Grimsby area to create a new integrated Humberside coroner area. A copy of the supporting business case was included as Appendix B.

At its meeting on 25 June 2021, the Greater Lincolnshire Joint Strategic Oversight Committee resolved that a merger of the current coroner areas for North Lincolnshire and Grimsby and Lincolnshire be pursued to develop a new coroner area for Greater Lincolnshire, with Lincolnshire County Council as the lead authority for the new Coroner Service.

The Directors report outlined and examined the following three options for the Cabinet to consider –

·         Option 1 – maintain the current North Lincolnshire and Grimsby coroner area.

·         Option 2 – agree to proceed with the Greater Lincolnshire business case and work with partners to develop a merged service plan for a new Greater Lincolnshire coroner area.

·         Option 3 - agree to proceed with the Humberside business case and work with partners to develop a merged service plan for a new Humberside coroner area.

Resolved – (a) That Option 2 above be approved, with the making of an application to the Chief Coroner and Lord Chancellor for the merger of the two current coroner areas for North Lincolnshire and Grimsby, and Lincolnshire to create a new Greater Lincolnshire coroner area, with Lincolnshire County Council acting as the lead authority for the new coroner service thereunder, and (b) that further reports be submitted to Cabinet on progress of this proposal, as appropriate.