Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, with reference to Government grants statistics 2020 to 2021, published on 31 March 2022, what assessment his Department has made of the effectiveness of the Adult Social Care Omicron Support Fund.

In recognition of the increased pressures on existing funding sources caused by the Omicron variant, the Government made available £60 million of additional funding for January 2022 through the Omicron Support Fund.

As this funding was made available in January 2022, it was not included in the Government grants statistics publication for 2020 to 2021. However, it was included in the publication for 2021 to 2022, which is available at the following link:

https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/government-grants-statistics-2021-to-2022.

This fund was unringfenced, meaning that local authorities could prioritise the use of their allocations based on local resource and need. Local authorities submitted spending reports as part of our monitoring, showing use of their funding on the key measures outlined in the grant conditions, which were confirmed as the appropriate activities at that time. No assessment has been made of the effectiveness of the Omicron Support Fund.