Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask His Majesty's Government, further to the recommendation of the UK Statistics Authority's Inclusive Data Taskforce that “Sex, age and ethnic group should be routinely collected and reported in all administrative data and in-service process data, including statistics collected within health and care settings and by police, courts and prisons”, why the collection of data on sex is not mandated in the Collection of Client Level Adult Social Care Data (No 3) Directions 2023.

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.