London Borough of Croydon: local authority assessment
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Overall summary
Local authority rating and score
Quality statement scores
Summary of people's experiences
People were assessed and supported by committed and compassionate staff. Strength-based assessments and practice were well embedded. People’s right to choose was respected. Their aspirations and abilities were recognised. People were supported with the least restrictive options to promote their independence.
Most people were assessed in good time with limited waits for most services.
Most people told us they had a named social worker, responsive support, and continuity of care. They said there was a holistic and supportive consideration of the person and their strengths, and good involvement by different teams. Most people we spoke with said they were listened to and had choice over their care and support.
Most people gave positive feedback about the preventative support they received, which helped them to feel more independent and in control of their health and care needs. However, few people were supported to access direct payments to independently manage their care needs.
Most people told us they felt supported to stay well by the local authority. For example, they were supported to access vaccination clinics or signposted to local community organisations for assistance.
Many people were placed out of area in other local authorities. Most people were in settled placements where they had been for a long period. However, the number of new out-of-area placements was decreasing.
More support was needed for unpaid carers as some unpaid carers were not aware of what support was available, such as respite and direct payments. The carer assessment process did not meet the needs of all unpaid carers.
Summary of strengths, areas for development and next steps
Assessment waiting lists were mostly well managed, but with challenges in occupational therapy (OT). There was a robust risk-based approach to managing incoming referrals and a waiting well approach to support those on waiting lists. The local authority had made progress in reducing waiting lists for assessments and reviews.
There were some good examples of prevention, supporting people to live healthier lives and improving access and outcomes. Staff had good links with community services. There were innovative creative health initiatives to support people’s wellbeing.
There was low uptake of direct payments and a need for improved staff training and awareness to support improved uptake. There was some positive engagement to improve direct payment uptake.
The assistive technology service was enabling people to stay independent in their own homes, but this was more of an alert service rather than providing enabling assistive technology.
There was limited evidence of contingency planning in people’s records, for example if an unpaid carer was unexpectedly not available to fulfil their caring duties. We heard mixed feedback across teams about availability of community support services for carers. The local authority transitioned to a new commissioned carers service in April 2025, shortly before our assessment.
Local authority leaders and staff demonstrated comprehensive understanding of local inequalities, and equality, diversity and inclusion was rooted in practice. There was a sophisticated understanding of strengths, gaps, actions and outcomes to improve equity. This included effective use of data to identify and understand where inequalities were. The local authority worked with people with lived experience to understand and address different inequalities and the impact of structural barriers to accessing care.
Staff reported some challenges getting timely interpretation and translation support, particularly out of hours, and limited availability of information in various formats, such as easy-read or audio-visual. This meant staff faced difficulties meeting some people’s communication needs.
There was a stable, high quality provider market in Croydon, with mostly sufficient capacity to meet demand. However, many providers cared for people from outside of Croydon, and vulnerable people with care needs accessed Croydon-based services. This put pressure on some services.
The local authority had robust provider quality assurance arrangements to ensure safe and effective care, including regular planned quality visits and support for providers.
There was a clear vision and plan for service commissioning, but many commissioning priorities were new or in development. Commissioning processes did not sufficiently use feedback from people who used care services, with a need for earlier co-production.
The brokerage team had good partnerships to meet people's different needs. Dynamic real-time information helped find suitable placements including providers catering to specific languages, diets, and equipment to meet people's individual needs.
The integration agenda was very well developed and working well in Croydon. Partner organisations consistently reported genuine collaboration, mutual support and practical integration of systems and culture. Good joint working fostered an ethos of belonging to the same system with shared ambitions to provide good quality care for residents. In practice this meant joint teams, effective shared funding arrangements, open access and communication between senior and operational staff and services were co-located where this led to positive outcomes. Frontline staff reported good multidisciplinary working.
Providers highlighted improvements in local authority support and communication and reported a more collaborative approach in working together, but some reported delayed or inconsistent communication.
The local authority commissioned many voluntary, community and social enterprise (VCSE) organisations to provide prevention and support services in places where people needed them. However, we received mixed feedback about support for the VCSE sector. Some local groups needed greater clarity around longer-term commissioning and more support for them to be sustainable.
Safeguarding systems supported people at risk of abuse and neglect. We heard examples of making safeguarding personal and involving people in support and protection plans. There was clear learning from safeguarding adult reviews (SARs), and the local safeguarding adults board (SAB) governance was well-established with good cross-agency partnerships. There was close working between locality and safeguarding teams. Providers reported good safeguarding support. There was ongoing work to identify unmet safeguarding needs and improve engagement with the local South Asian community.
Integrated discharge teams applied a least-restrictive home first approach and there was good wrap-around support for people leaving hospital. The local authority had established an adult social care mental health link worker to improve integration and connections with local mental health services.
There was good collaborative working between children’s and adult teams to support the transition of young people from children’s services into adult services. A whole family approach ensured young people were heard and empowered.
We met many well-established staff with many combined years of experience and in-depth understanding of the needs of people living in Croydon. Many staff had developed their careers and felt a strong sense of pride and commitment. Most staff told us Croydon was a supportive and inclusive place to work and they felt listened to. Staff recognised local challenges and understood how their roles impacted on people’s access to care.
There was a well-established leadership team. Service leaders and managers told a coherent story of drive and desire to make improvements, and staff reported good access to visible and supportive leaders.
Elected members were well briefed and engaged, with an in-depth, holistic understanding of Croydon and local challenges. There was a maturity of political relationships and effective scrutiny, both internally and with key partners in the One Croydon Alliance.
Senior leaders and elected members were working to ensure service sustainability. Adult social care was one of the local authority’s highest expenditure areas. The local authority was experiencing severe ongoing financial challenges, with high demand for social care and homelessness services contributing to budgetary pressures. The local authority scrutiny board was routinely updated on plans and initiatives to support savings plans.
There were improvements around data reporting to support impactful decision making, with clear investment and commitment to improve data systems and capability.
The Principal Social Worker and Principal Occupational Therapist were improving the visibility and voice of their respective professions, recruiting hard to fill vacancies and strengthening practice skills.
Most frontline staff spoke positively about the learning and training offer. The local authority’s development programme supported good staff recruitment and retention. The local authority nurtured the professional development of staff from minority ethnicity backgrounds, which supported an empowered and inclusive culture and improved more diverse representation at management level.
There were some examples of co-production, but many people felt the service needed to do more to seek and listen to people’s views, involve them in early decision making, and ensure feedback was used to make improvements. There was a need for a more systematic approach to co-production rather than consultation and following through on co-production activity. Given the diversity of the local population, there was limited diversity of voices involved in co-production, which relied on many of the same people.