What 65 council websites say about large print after a death

The numbers

The first row’s “no” means no link to a large print guide was found on any of the 574 after-a-death and crematorium pages read. The second row counts any mention, including a facility note.

Councils that say something on these pages

5 councils say something about large print or another accessible format on their after-a-death or crematorium pages. None is a downloadable large print guide, and each is credited here in its own words, with the page it was read on.

A sentence any council can add

A line on the bereavement page is all it takes for a family to learn the option exists:

“Guides to what to do after a death are available in large print. Free large print guides, 18 point, are at valoren.uk/large-print, or ask us for any council leaflet in large print.”

The free guides on the large print page can be linked or printed without asking, as set out for organisations on the organisations page. A council that adds a line like this is welcome to tell us, and is credited here.

All 65 councils

Every council has a row, whatever the result. “Does not say” means the pages read did not mention it; it is not a finding that the council refuses. Councils are in the order the study listed them within each nation, never ranked.

“Few pages” marks the 5 councils where fewer than five after-a-death and crematorium pages could be reached, so a mention on a page we did not reach would not be counted. 14 councils refuse an automatic reader and were read in a real browser session instead; none was left unread.

How it was done

For each council we found, from the council’s own website, its main “what to do after a death” and bereavement pages, its crematorium and cemetery pages, the library pages for home delivery or accessible services, and its site-wide accessibility statement: 808 addresses in all. Pages were found by following each council’s own links out from its after-a-death section, supplemented by site maps, site search and hand-picked addresses where that failed. Guides and leaflets linked from the pages were read too, as text.

A script fetched every address and counted, case-insensitively, the words large print, large-print, giant print, accessible format, alternative format, easy read, braille and audio. Every hit on an after-a-death or crematorium page was then read in its context by a person and marked relevant or not, with the reason: a menu item reading “audiobooks” does not count, and a facility note does count but is kept apart from guidance. A council counts as mentioning large print if any such page does. It counts as offering a guide to download only if a page links to a file or page whose link text, title or address says large, giant or big print.

Pages that refused the script were tried again, then read in a real browser session with the same test; no automatic-check page was solved or clicked. The five councils with a mention were re-opened by hand and each hit reproduced, and nothing was found by hand in the “does not say” councils that the script had missed. Two full runs of the 808 addresses on the day changed no count.

Limits, before you quote

1. It is a chosen sample of 65, not a random draw and not every council. A claim about “UK councils” needs a different study.
2. It counts page text only. A council may provide large print by phone or on request; the pages may not say so, and this study cannot see it.
3. Pages were found by following links, not by reading whole sites. A statement on a page we did not reach is not counted.
4. In counties, the cemeteries and crematoria are mostly run by district councils; those pages were not read.
5. Welsh and Gaelic pages were not read.
6. Some wording sits in a collapsed panel of the page and is in the page text; a reader may need to open the panel to see it.
7. Whether a hit counts is a person’s judgement. Each one is recorded with its reason in the open data so it can be challenged.
8. Councils change their pages. This is a dated snapshot from 31 October 2026, not archived; re-running the published test is the way to check a later state.

Corrections and replies

If you work for a council in the table and a row is wrong, or a page has changed, email hello@valoren.uk with the council and the page. We re-read the page, correct the row, and record the change here with its date. A council’s reply can be added to its row in the council’s own words.

Corrections log

• 31 October 2026 · First edition published: 65 councils in England, Wales and Scotland, every address fetched on 31 October 2026. No corrections yet.

The study is re-read every three months; the next check is due by 29 January 2027. Each re-read is dated, and an earlier edition stays available. The plan is to widen it to every principal council and to Northern Ireland.

The data, the test and how to cite it

One row per council (65 rows) and one row per address read (808 rows), as a spreadsheet or as JSON, each with its licence, the day it was checked and a next-check date. The script that made it, and the list of addresses it read, are published so anyone can re-run it.

• Councils, spreadsheet (CSV, 27 KB) and JSON
• Every page read, spreadsheet (CSV, 131 KB) and JSON
• The test (check.mjs) and the 808 addresses it read. Needs Node 18 or later, curl and pdftotext.

The columns are named in plain words in each file’s header. The wording that tells a reader what a mention is, and why a menu item is not one, is under “How it was done” above.

For journalists

Three numbers: none of 65 councils offered a large print guide to download on their after-a-death pages; 3 mentioned large print there at all; 50 of 64 library pages mention it. The sample is 43 in England, 10 in Wales, 12 in Scotland, chosen not drawn. Everything above, the data and the test are free to use with attribution. Questions: hello@valoren.uk.