Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, what the annual cost to the public purse is of processing applications for free social care in England.

Access to State financial support for adult social care in England is means-tested and is not generally provided free of charge. In this way, individuals are expected to pay towards the cost of their care and support based on what they can afford.

Adults with less than £23,250 in capital can seek help with the cost of social care from their local authority. Local authorities carry out a financial assessment to decide what an individual can afford to pay. Local authorities must take account of an individual's capital assets and income, including income from Benefits and the State Pension.

Information on the cost to local authorities of carrying out financial assessments is not collected centrally.

In its 2011 report, the independent Palliative Care Funding Review recommended the provision of free social care at the end of life. A series of palliative care funding pilots were established to test the review's recommendations, and these completed their work in March 2014. NHS England is currently analysing the financial data collected from the pilots. Once this analysis has been completed, a decision will be made on the issue of free social care at the end of life, taking into account this analysis and wider policy and financial considerations.