Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what assessment he has made of the adequacy of each upper tier local authority to meet the demand for social care in the next (a) 12 months and (b) five years.

Local authorities are best placed to understand and plan for the needs of their population, which is why, under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are tasked with the duty to shape their care market to meet the diverse needs of all local people. In performing that duty, a local authority must have regard to the need to ensure that it is aware of current and likely future demand for such services, and to consider how providers in their local area might meet that demand.

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) is assessing local authorities’ delivery of these duties. The CQC started these assessments in December 2023, and will assess all 153 local authorities in England over the next two years. The assessments facilitate the sharing of good practice and help us to target support where it is most needed. If an assessment identifies that a local authority has failed or is failing to discharge its functions under the Care Act 2014 to an acceptable standard, my Rt Hon. Friend, the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care has powers to intervene.

The Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund includes grant conditions which require each local authority to submit an adult social care capacity plan. These were submitted to the Department in June 2024 and are currently undergoing processing and quality assurance.