Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many local authorities have an autism strategy.

This information is not recorded centrally. Local joint commissioning plans for services for adults with autism should be developed and updated based on effective joint strategic needs assessment. The second national Public Health England self-assessment exercise reported on progress being made by the end of September 2013 across all 152 local authority areas in England.

Details can be found at:

www.ihal.org.uk/projects/autism2013

The exercise is a key means of identifying progress in implementing the strategy as a whole and for demonstrating local accountability. The most recent exercise started on 12 December 2014 for completion by 9 March 2015.