Question to the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities:

To ask the Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, what plans he has to audit local authorities to assess what proportion of funding raised specifically through the social care precept is spent on frontline social care.

The Government is keen to ensure that any money raised by councils using the new flexibility is spent on adult social care. We were clear about this in the consultation document to the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement which was published 15 December which states:

“To ensure that councils are using income from the precept for adult social care, councils will be required to publish a description of their plans, including changing levels of spend on adult social care and other services. This must be signed off by the Chief Finance Officer (section 151 officer). Councils wishing to use the extra freedom to raise their precept by 3 per cent instead of 2 per cent in 2017-18 must also show how they plan to use this extra money to improve social care.”

Councils have also been required to publish their returns concerning the social care precept on their websites to ensure local accountability.