The Eltham Crematorium Joint Committee was scheduled to meet to appoint a chair and vice-chair, and to note reports from the Bereavement Services Manager, the Programme Manager for Capital Projects & Property Maintenance, and the Finance Manager. The committee was also scheduled to discuss a three-year works programme and the crematorium's financial position. Some financial information was marked as exempt from public access.

Three-Year Works Programme

The committee was scheduled to note that Total Protection (Holdings) Ltd had been appointed to deliver a three-year works programme (2024-2027) for a sum of £1,394,874.60. It was also scheduled to note that the programme, as agreed at the meeting on 5 February 2025, would be delivered over two years, in 2025 and 2026.

A schedule of the planned works was included in the report pack in Appendix 1 Crem 3-year works programme. These include:

• Refurbishment of the West Chapel waiting room
• Kitchen renewal
• Pond refurbishment
• Path renewal
• Danstoker refurbishment
• Flower pavilion window repairs
• Repointing of the Book of Remembrance and cloisters
• Roof renewals
• Main office WC refurbishment
• Disabled WC refurbishment
• Vestry WC refurbishment
• North Chapel refurbishment
• Concrete coatings externally and internally
• Renewal of seating and chapel curtains
• Renewal of lighting
• Renew main entrance doors
• Repointing works
• Site clearance

Financial Matters

The committee was scheduled to note the 2024/25 year-end financial position, as well as the projected financial position at Period 2 for 2025/26. This included noting the repairs and renewals balance, the donations balance, and distribution payments made to the constituent authorities.

The Finance Managers Treasurer Report included a summary of variances reported on the Budget Monitoring Statement:

Budget Area	Variance £'000	Reason
Employees	-33	Scale 2 vacant post
Premises Costs	0
Transport	0
Supplies & Services	0
Central Dept. Charges	0
Income	0
Projected Variance	-33

The report also detailed the distribution budgets and actual payments made to constituent authorities between 2019/20 and 2024/25, and the budgeted amount for this financial year.

Appendices A and B to the Finance Managers Treasurer Report were marked as exempt from public access under the Local Government Act 1972, due to their containing information relating to the financial or business affairs of particular persons, including the authority holding the information¹.

Bereavement Services

The committee was scheduled to note information regarding cremation and memorial sales, operational issues, and the timeline for new cremator installation.

The Bereavement Services Managers Report included cremation figures for the past three financial years, broken down by borough:

The report also noted that the cremators at Eltham Crematorium had entered their fifth year of end-of-life expectancy, and that members were asked to consider the timeline for the installation of new cremators compared to the costs associated with planned works to keep the current cremators operational.