Cumberland Council: local authority assessment

Published: 29 January 2026 Page last updated: 29 January 2026

Assessment published: 29 January 2026

About Cumberland Council

Demographics

Cumberland is home to over 273,000 residents. The population is predicted to fall by 0.3% by 2028.

Cumberland has an older age profile compared to England and Wales with ages 0 to 64 making up around 76.15% of the population compared to around 81.31% for England as a whole. Cumberland has an ageing population, with the number of people over 65 due to increase by 16.8% by 2028 (Office of National Statistics, 2020). The number of residents aged 16 to 64 is projected to decrease by 4.8% by 2028.

More than half of Cumberland’s population live in classified rural areas, accounting for 51.7%. This compares to just 17.1% for England. It is much more sparsely populated than England with 91 people per sq km, compared to 395 people per sq km in England. Cumberland is 3,012 square km.

The 2021 Census did not specifically give ethnic origin data for Cumberland and instead data was representative of the wider area of Cumbria. Most of Cumbria’s population identified as white, making up 97.64%. Asian and Asian British people made up 1% of the population. This was much lower than national averages of 9.61%. 0.8% of people identified as Mixed and multiple ethnicities, 0.2% identified as Black, Black British, Caribbean or African and 0.3% identified as ‘Other’ ethnicities.

The population has an Index of Multiple Deprivation score of 6 (1 is the least deprived, 10 is the most deprived) meaning it was neither one of the most or least deprived local authorities in England. Four community areas in Cumberland fall within the 10% most deprived nationally; approximately 8.3% of Cumberland’s population (22,850 people). However, 10 community areas are amongst the least deprived.

Cumberland is a unitary authority and was established in 2023. Cumberland was a Labour-led Unitary Authority with a large majority at the time of the assessment. Most of the population of Cumberland was part of the North East, North Cumbria Integrated Care System. However, some of the South of the population was covered by the Lancashire and South Cumbria Integrated Care System.

Financial facts

There was no available estimated total budget for the local authority in 2023/24 due to Local Government Reorganisation in 2023. Its actual spend for that year was £460,670,000.00.
There was no available estimated total budget spend on adult social care in 2023/24 due to Local Government Reorganisation in 2023. Its actual spend was £104,350,000.00.
In 2023/24, 22.65% of the budget was spent on adult social care.
The local authority has raised the full adult social care precept for 2023/24, with a value of 2%. Please note that the amount raised through ASC precept varies from local authority to local authority.
In 2023/24 approximately 4465 people were accessing long-term adult social care support per 100,000 people, and approximately 1400 people were accessing short-term adult social care support. Local authorities spend money on a range of adult social care services, including supporting individuals. No two care packages are the same and vary significantly in their intensity, duration, and cost.

This data is reproduced at the request of the Department of Health and Social Care. It has not been factored into our assessment and is presented for information purposes only.