Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what plans his Department has to determine fair and sustainable costs of care, in the event that there is significant cost variation among local authorities conducting a cost of care exercise.

Under the Care Act 2014, local authorities are responsible for managing local care markets and determining fee rates for providers. The Act states that fee levels should be appropriate to provide the agreed quality of care, enable providers to effectively support care users, invest in staff development, innovation and improvement.

We are committing £1.4 billion to support local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair cost of care. The average cost of care, how far local authorities will move towards it, and the cost of doing so, will vary according to their starting point, local market circumstances and local pressures. Local authorities must set out their plans for driving market sustainability and report to the Department on how the funding is being used.