Death declaration from now on completely digital and greatly simplified!
A first for the City of Lier
Pontes, Cipal Schaubroeck, Remmicom and Starfisk are today launching CLARUS, an innovative digital platform for municipalities and funeral directors to process death declarations online. The intermunicipal authority for crematorium management and the software suppliers for Flemish municipalities call on the expertise of Starfisk for the development of this platform. In this way, the declaration can be made digitally, efficiently and smoothly in the future. An enormous time saver, not only for funeral directors, but also for cities and municipalities and other parties involved. The city of Lier kicks off and is the first to get started!
Declaration of death, that involves a lot
Tom Wustenberghs, General Manager of Pontes, says: “Every year more than 60,000 people die in Flanders. Funeral directors must always submit a declaration to the town hall for this. When a death is registered, the municipality will check the last will of the deceased and then provide the funeral director with a certificate of death.
“In more than 70% of the cases,” continues Wustenberghs, “permission for cremation is also requested from the municipality. Permission for cremation can be submitted to the municipality after 24 hours at the earliest. Subsequently, the funeral director often also has to arrange a concession at the cemetery. The funeral director is then responsible for the practical arrangements regarding cremation and farewell ceremony.
Kathleen Janssens, General Director of the City of Lier, adds: “It goes without saying that registering a death is a complex administrative process for both the funeral director and us as a city. We also have to enter the data that we receive from the funeral director into our software applications. So a lot of duplication that can be avoided from now on, in other words, a good example of how digitization simplifies the administrative process!”
Hans Hulpiau, COO of Cipal Schaubroeck, concludes: “Remmicom and Cipal Schaubroeck like to build governments of the future together with local authorities. We are fully committed to digital transformation and are therefore very proud that we can launch the platform for digital death declaration today. This platform, which fully integrates with our Civil Registry applications, ensures an end-2-end digitization of a very important process in cities and municipalities. It offers them great efficiency gains and time savings.”
THREE IN ONE!
CLARUS is on the one hand related to the verb “to declare” or to indicate. On the other hand, it also means “clear”. So we couldn't think of a better name for this brand new platform that allows you to process a death declaration very simply and digitally.
Numerous functionalities are brought together in one platform and the declaration of death, the request for cremation and the purchase of a concession can be done much faster and digitally. This saves the funeral director several trips and telephones. From now on, he can fill in all the data of the deceased in one application and then declare a death, arrange a cremation and purchase a concession at the cemetery without the municipal employee having to enter this data again.
After all formalities have been completed, the certificate of death and the authorization for cremation can be sent directly to the funeral director and the crematorium. All applications and documents received are conveniently stored in one dashboard so that it is clear to both the municipality and the funeral director what the status is of each declaration. So efficiency gains for both parties.
First basic functionalities, then focus on the medical sector
Within CLARUS, the three basic functionalities (death declaration, cremation request and concession purchase) will be made available to users this year. In the meantime, work continues on the connection and integration with other actors - and there are quite a lot of them.
For example, the next ambition lies in involving the medical sector. For the registration of a death and the request for a cremation, the substantive information from doctors is essential. So it seems logical that they could fill in and share data via the same platform without disclosing confidential data. Such cooperation with the medical sector aims to simplify the declaration process even further.
About Pontes
In the 1970s there was an increase in the number of people who wanted to be cremated in the province of Antwerp. The Antwerp city council and the provincial council were therefore asked to build a crematorium.
Even though burial in Belgium is a municipal competence according to the law of 20 July 1971, it was the Antwerp provincial council that instructed the deputation in October 1975 to find a solution for the shortage of cremation capacity.
Discussions with the councils of mayor and aldermen of the 3 district capitals (Antwerp, Turnhout and Mechelen) and the 7 municipalities of the Antwerp agglomeration led on February 14, 1978 to the establishment of the Intermunicipal Association for Crematorium Management in the Province of Antwerp S.V. (called I.V.C.A. for short).
In addition to the province of Antwerp, the founding members were the municipalities of Antwerp, Berchem, Borgerhout, Deurne, Ekeren, Hoboken, Mechelen, Merksem, Turnhout and Wilrijk. I.V.C.A. would establish crematoria in Antwerp and Turnhout. Over the years, several municipalities became shareholders, especially with the prospect of building the second crematorium. The same happened in 2013 when the plans for the crematorium in Lommel became concrete. Today, PONTES has 58 municipalities that are shareholders.
About Starfisk
Starfisk is a Flemish IT Company that has been active in the field of digital transformation in Europe since 2017. The focus is mainly on innovative business models, the redefinition of distribution partnerships and the integration of digital processes at the various stakeholders.
Starfisk builds cloud applications and API and application marketplaces for customers. These applications/marketplaces are focused on (fast) digital sales, on setting up new digital platforms and finally on participating in these digital platforms.
Starfisk offers a full spectrum of supported IT services for the implementation of a transformation plan, such as business consulting, application engineering, DevOps, ...
About Remmicom
Remmicom has been the specialist in software and hardware solutions for Flemish local authorities since 1988. As a supplier of back office software within various domains, Remmicom offers IT solutions based on the most modern technologies.
In addition, Remmicom provides support for the hardware and infrastructure. Optimal service, with a personal approach, coupled with quality products forms the basis of the trust that customers place in Remmicom.
Remmicom is active in more than 100 administrations, from small to large, spread over the Flemish part of the country.
About Cipal Schaubroeck
Cipal Schaubroeck wants to innovate - through sustainable co-creation with customers - to take the digital transformation of governments to a higher level. People are central to this. Citizens, civil servants and our employees should all benefit from this. The citizen through a customer-friendly and efficient government, the civil servant through user-friendly and reliable applications and our employees by giving them the opportunity to develop their talents. Cipal Schaubroeck always strives to offer solutions that improve the quality of life of citizens and simplify the work of civil servants. From a vision of co-creation, Cipal Schaubroeck, together with various governments, realizes digital transformation in a sustainable way.
Together with more than 600 motivated and competent employees, the Cipal Schaubroeck group is building the governments of the future. Cipal Schaubroeck is constantly building up its expertise in the policy areas for which it is a structural partner for local authorities. In addition, Cipal Schaubroeck has opted to join forces in order to invest even more in innovation. In recent years, an ecosystem has been formed around Cipal Schaubroeck, which ensures that local authorities can easily benefit from innovation brought by subsidiaries and partners.
Contact details
| Pontes | Tom Wustenberghs – General Manager +32 486 89 94 30 tom.wustenberghs@pontes.be www.pontes.be |
| Starfisk | Alexander Van Maele – Software Developer / Communication +32 473 37 22 10 alexander@starfisk.com www.starfisk.com |
| Remmicom nv | Peter Dewever – Customer Relations Manager +32 497 52 43 16 peter.dewever@remmicom.be www.remmicom.be |
| Cipal Schaubroeck nv | Isabel Van den Eynde – Manager Customer Relations +32 498 43 14 03 isabel.vandeneynde@cipalschaubroeck.be www.cipalschaubroeck.be |