Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the Written Answer by Baroness Merron on 3 February (HL3955), on what basis local authorities are required to collect information about gender and who requires that information.

The 2023 Client Level Data (CLD) Directions set out the specific data that local authorities are required to collect and submit to the Department, in order for the Department to produce national data on the provision of adult social care in England. The data mandated in these directions are therefore only a small subset of all the administrative data that local authorities may collect and hold.

Meanwhile, local authorities routinely collect the data and information they consider necessary to perform their functions. The 2023 CLD Directions do not preclude local authorities from collecting any further information, including for example sex, that local authorities may consider necessary to effectively discharge their legal obligations.