Complete transparency?

Island council taxpayers have been landed with almost £60,000 in costs to deal with complaints and legal challenges involving the Isle of Wight’s embattled coroner, Caroline Sumeray – but neither she nor the cash-strapped Isle of Wight Council will explain when the money was paid or what it was spent on.

A Freedom of Information request, by the IW Observer, revealed that the Council paid £24,322.20 in 2024/25 and a further £34,936.30 in 2025/26 to indemnify Ms Sumeray under Regulation 17 of the Coroners Allowances, Fees and Expenses Regulations 2013. The regulation requires local authorities to cover coroners’ legal bills, damages, and settlements arising from proceedings connected to their duties.

Despite the size of the payments and the ongoing controversy surrounding the Coroner’s Service, the Council says it “does not hold” any breakdown of how the money was used. A senior officer confirmed there is no formal process for making claims and that requests for payment can even be made verbally to the council’s chief executive, Wendy Perera.

This lack of clarity sharply contradicts Ms Sumeray’s recent written statement to the Council’s Environment and Community Protection Committee, where she said: “I would like there to be complete transparency concerning my service.” Yet when the IW Observer asked her to confirm whether she had supplied documentary evidence or would reveal the number and amount of her claims, she did not respond.

A council spokesman said Parliament had placed a legal duty on local authorities to indemnify coroners for costs in connection with defending claims made against them in the course of their duties. As this is a statutory duty, the Council said it must provide the indemnity.

A service under scrutiny

The issue comes at a time when Ms Sumeray’s service is facing intense scrutiny in other areas. Figures published in 2025 showed that the Isle of Wight had the longest inquest delays in England and Wales, with more than 400 families waiting over a year for answers. In July 2025, she received a formal misconduct warning from the Judicial Conduct Investigations Office after a four year delay for one inquest was found to have “no reasonable explanation”. Families have also raised concerns about her increasing use of Section 9C powers to conclude cases in writing rather than in public hearings, and the revelation that six assistant coroners, appointed more than five years ago, had never handled a single case, despite the huge backlog.

Despite the public interest, the Council has refused to release the dates or amounts of individual indemnity payments, claiming that doing so “would or would be likely to identify personal information” when combined with information already in the public domain. It has not explained how. The IW Observer requested only dates and sums – but the Council imposed a blanket refusal. That decision is now being appealed.

The Island’s MPs have also expressed concern. West Wight MP, Richard Quigley, said that, while the coroner role is challenging, it was reasonable to question costs, especially given the distress caused to bereaved families by long delays. East Wight MP, Joe Robertson, said that if taxpayers are underwriting the legal fees of a judicial office holder, there should be full transparency and proper scrutiny. He added that nobody else was paid by the council without documentary evidence and he would be raising the matter with ministers.

With trust in the Coroner’s Service already low, the refusal to provide even basic financial information raises further questions about accountability – and about what Ms Sumeray means by “complete transparency”.