The objective of this thesis was to look into the cost-equivalence of the prices of the maintenance of individual gravesites in the Federation of Espoo parishes. This became topical when the joint council of parishes accepted the strategy for cemetery services for the years 2008–2015. The guidelines for operative actions of the strategy point towards greater cost-effectiveness in the maintenance of individual gravesites.

Seasonal employees do almost 90 per cent of the gravesite maintenance in the Federation of Espoo parishes. The working time of these seasonal employees was closely followed during 2007, 2008, 2009 and 2011 in certain gravesite areas of the Kirkko cemetery for the purpose of this thesis. Also the time tracking of work of the regular staff since 2002 is being used for this thesis.

The method of this study is quantitative. The cost-effectiveness is calculated on the base of the collected data. The cost of wages is taken into account on the basis of the time used for the gravesite maintenance. Also the costs of material and use of machinery on the gravesites are taken into account in the calculation.

Calculations indicate that wage costs of the maintenance of flowers form the biggest part of the overall costs for individual gravesite maintenance. When comparing the costs to the rates collected by Espoo parishes for the gravesite maintenance it is obvious that there is a pressure to raise rates.