East Riding of Yorkshire Council: local authority assessment

When people received an assessment, care plan or review, this was person-centred and strengths-based. However, people’s care and support had not always reflected their right to choice and reviews could be difficult to instigate. Communication with people about the progress of their assessment or review had been limited. The local authority did not have a practice framework in place at the time of our assessment to support a unified and cohesive adult social care system in the local authority.

People could access the local authority’s care and support services on the phone and online and all contacts were managed through the Information and Advice Hub. The Information and Advice Hub completed initial enquiries, directed people to support in the community and triaged contacts through to other teams within the local authority. In a pilot of collecting feedback following contact with the Information and Advice Hub in 2024, 79.25% of 53 respondents agreed either a little or a lot they could get information and advice about how they can have a good life.

People could also drop in to community venues, such as libraries, where information was available about adult social care. The Carers Support Service had a dedicated building in Beverley town centre near to county hall to support anyone who wanted to drop in for support. Staff said they had regular footfall of walk-in enquiries and self-referrals through this option. Enquiries to teams, including the Carers Support Service, could be made online, though no online self-assessment options were available at the time of our assessment.

When people received an assessment, care plan or review, this was person-centred and strengths-based. Staff we spoke to in the local authority were passionate about building relationships and developing and encouraging people’s strengths through their work. Several people told us their care needs were well considered, they were given choices and were helped to understand the implications of those choices, including any contingency planning. People told us they felt listened to and there were clear plans in place to meet their needs in complex situations. Staff told us that a strengths-based approach was a focus within the work they did and this was embedded within their assessment forms. National data reflected this: 70.68% of people were satisfied with care and support, which was better than the England average of 62.72% (Adult Social Care Survey - ASCS, 2024). There was a regular forum to discuss strengths-based working to provide support to staff. The local authority was developing a peer supervision model at the time of our assessment to provide a further mechanism to support staff to deliver effective strengths-based practice.

There were several examples shared with us of restrictive packages of care being reduced which indicated how staff could use assessments, care planning and reviews to consider people’s human rights, independence and choice. For example, one individual had been in a care home for a number of years and this had been identified as an inappropriate setting and one they were unhappy about. Local authority functions supported the review of these needs and new packages of care to be developed that supported people’s choice and independence. These examples, however, raised some questions about why these more restrictive packages or placements had been agreed initially. The local authority did provide higher rates for more rural packages of care, though feedback we received from some providers indicated that more rural packages had additional time included to ensure packages were financially viable.

In some instances, carers told us requested reviews or considerations of moving placements to be closer to family had been difficult to instigate. One family member told us they had requested a review multiple times and they felt they were given excuses why the review couldn’t take place. In another example, a carer said their family member was placed out of area and there was no consideration they could be moved closer. They said the social worker’s caseload meant they didn’t have the time to consider this. When reviews did take place, carers reported actions were taken quickly and new placements, where needed, were progressed in a timely way.

Questions regarding protected characteristics under the Equality Act 2010 were incorporated into the local authority’s assessment documentation. Staff told us they discussed identity with people as part of their assessments. This information had not been mandatory, and some staff had expressed a desire to improve their confidence in talking to people about protected characteristics and incorporating this into assessments and care planning. Staff considered capacity under the Mental Capacity Act 2005 and completed capacity assessments where needed.

Communication had been identified as a challenge. Some people, carers, and partners told us they didn’t always know what was happening regarding their assessment, care plan, or review. A carer, for example, told us there were gaps in the local authority's services, everything was a fight and communication was poor. Several carers told us they felt they had to progress through official complaints, to their MP or to the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman (LGSCO) to get the support they needed. There were also concerns that documents were not always shared with people as they should, limiting people’s ability to effectively understand and contribute to their own assessment, care plan, or review. This had been a theme of complaints which had been acknowledged by relevant staff, including through the Practice Development Board, and additional guidance had been shared with staff to improve this. A restorative approach to complaints had been implemented to support resolutions through open and honest discussion.

Staff teams worked together or referred to each other, to support planned and coordinated support across different teams. However, teams sometimes described disconnect in understanding each other’s roles or criteria. Some staff queried whether different parts of the service or organisation fully understood their roles or the needs of the people they supported. Some carers expressed frustration with perceived poor handovers and poor communication when there were changes in social workers. This was exacerbated by waits for allocation to a worker. Some staff told us referrals to mental health teams could only come through GPs, rather than through the Information and Advice Hub, which may have created delays for some people.

Assessment teams had the skills required to carry out assessments, including specialist assessments, though we received mixed feedback about the availability of training to support staff to build their skills. Some staff were happy with the training available, but others shared it could be difficult to access. The local authority had standardised their training matrices for staff across the service to better track this. Staff described supportive relationships within their teams that enabled them to ask questions and support each other to support the people of East Riding. Toolkits such as ‘what if’ cards, describing key topics and learning succinctly, and briefings and forums were in place to support practice. Staff had identified where they wanted to grow their practice, such as relational and trauma-informed practice.

The local authority was without a launched practice framework at the time of our assessment. A practice framework can clearly set out the expectations on practice, including what practitioners do and why, and ensures practice is ethical and evidence-based within the appropriate legal frameworks. This was being drafted, and an early version had been shared with some staff through engagement forums. Plans were developing at the time of our assessment to support the further development of the model and agree how it would be launched and what training was needed.

The local authority had a specific team to support people in the 3 prisons in the area. Staff worked with Category A and Category C prisons to deliver Care Act assessments to prisoners. This specialist team was an example of clearly responding to a need within the area and working in a complex system environment to provide care and support to people under challenging circumstances. The team was a good example of the positive person-focused and strengths-based service people who received services in the local authority area could access.

There were waits for assessments and reviews across the local authority that affected people’s experiences and outcomes. The local authority did not set target timescales for the completion of assessments to track the performance of teams and identify any concerns or deviations that warranted further investigation and improvement.

All waiting lists were rated in response to risk, and the local authority was confident high risk concerns were allocated to staff and assessments and care plans were completed in a timely way. Every request for support received through the Information and Advice Hub provided a short, proportionate assessment to enable services to signpost as needed and complete a risk assessment. People received a ‘waiting well’ letter directing them to community support and to contact the service if their situation changed. Contacts that were not rated at the highest level waited longer. Those rated at the lowest level waited approximately 4 weeks for triage, according to some staff. They could then go on to wait longer once the need for further assessment was identified due to allocation delays.

Local authority data in June 2025 indicated that 616 people were awaiting allocation to the Community Wellbeing Teams. This figure was made up of a mix of 297 people new to the local authority and 336 people who had previously received support and where additional work was required, such as a capacity assessment or a change in need. Some providers told us it was difficult to contact social workers and there were long waits to get social workers allocated. One provider said a lack of timeliness from the local authority had resulted in hospital admissions. Another said they made safeguarding contacts sometimes when they were worried about someone who was waiting for an assessment which escalated their assessment. There were 931 adults awaiting an equipment assessment, of which 222 were awaiting a sensory assessment. One partner agency told us it was difficult for people with sight loss who were not registered blind to get a Care Act assessment. Some people with sight loss said getting an assessment was a postcode lottery.

The local authority completed some targeted work to reduce waiting times and the number of people awaiting assessments. The median waiting time for a Care Act assessment to start with the Community Wellbeing Teams was 18 days from the point of contact with services. The maximum waiting time was 1153 days. Several other significant waits were shared with us of over 800 days, though some of these related to recording issues. The local authority shared the detail of work they had undertaken to tackle the longest waits, including this one. The median was 3 days for the Disability Resource Team to complete equipment-based assessments, with a maximum waiting time of 531 days, and a median of 44 days for sensory assessments, with a maximum wait of 426 days. For Community Mental Health Teams, the median wait time was 42 days, with a maximum waiting time of 820 days. This data related to the June 2024 to May 2025 period. Each team was required to fully review their waiting list every 2 weeks following a process change in March 2025, which included contacting people directly. The local authority had also used their Customer Service Network to contact people which they were looking to expand to support the improvement of waiting times in the county.

People also waited for reviews. National data indicated 48.82% of long term support clients had been reviewed (planned or unplanned), which was similar to the England average of 58.77% (Short and Long-Term Support, 2024). Local authority data indicated the median number of days between when a review was due and when it was completed was 124 for June 2024 to June 2025. The maximum waiting time for a review completed in this period was 1264 days.

Staff told us that staffing levels were a concern and impacted on waiting lists. There were long waits to recruit staff in line with corporate recruitment policies, with one staff member saying it took a year between a staff member leaving and the vacancy being advertised. Capacity issues affected reviews following hospital discharge, with some people remaining in short-term residential care beyond original expectations, resulting in longer stays and poorer outcomes for people.

The local authority had an internal Carers Support Service which was well regarded by many of the people we spoke to. Carers described compassionate, effective and skilled staff who provided a consistent point of contact and support for the carers they worked with. National data indicated 38.14% of carers were satisfied with social services, which was similar to the England average of 36.83% (Survey of Adult Carers in England - SACE, 2024).

People came to the carers service in different ways, including picking up leaflets or being referred or signposted by other professionals. However, several carers told us there was not enough information or accessibility to the carers service. Some carers said they knew other carers who weren’t aware of the service or informed they could have a carers assessment, despite being known to services since their child was young. One partner, for example, told us they weren’t aware of anyone who used their service whose carer had received a carers assessment, despite working with significant numbers of people in the area.

The Carers Support Service had an office in Beverley that provided a physical location for people to walk in and get support. Staff said services in the community regularly referred people to the service. Staff were taking part in community events and sharing information through GP surgeries and other community services, such as Job Centre Plus, voluntary and community sector events, and patient and carer experience forums in hospitals to increase awareness of the service. This included the ‘We Care’ newsletter, delivered to 4,600 registered cares, online via social media, and posters and other information provided in community venues such as libraries. The local authority told us there were an estimated 47,000 carers in the area, with around 4,500 known to the service at the time of our assessment. Staff in other teams in the local authority referred people with caring responsibilities to the Carers Support Service for carers assessments where identified. Staff told us a significant challenge was people recognising themselves as carers and also reaching out to more seldom-heard communities to ensure support was provided across the population where needed. Leaders recognised the expected population growth for carers in the county in line with the ageing population and the need to ensure all carers across the county had access to the services they needed in the future.

Carers assessments could be delivered in light-touch ways, alongside combined assessments with the cared for person. There were available specialists in dementia and mental health to respond to the needs of carers. Assessments and reviews of care packages considered the carer’s needs, alongside their views, interests and outcomes. The median waiting time for a carers assessment to start was 25 days between June 2024 and May 2025. There were 576 people awaiting a carers assessments at the time of our assessment. The maximum waiting time was 213 days.

Carers gave positive examples of receiving packages of care, leisure passes, access to short break holidays and a ‘Your Money’ service that met their needs. Specific information was available on the local authority’s website that was directed to carers and Carers UK digital tools were also available. Several carers told us they didn’t have enough time to take advantage of the carer’s services available to them. National data indicated 0.00% of carers were accessing training for carers, which was significantly worse than the England average (SACE, 2024), indicating a lack of available training and access to it. One staff member, for example, told us training for carers wasn’t adequate and carers weren’t always supported to meet people’s needs. The Dementia Strategy 2024-2028, ‘Hope of a Life Still to be Lived’, identified the need for a full review of all training available to people with dementia and their carer partners as an action. This was an example of aiming to improve the access to carer training in the county, in progress at the time of our assessment.

Young carers assessments were provided by children’s teams. A young carer is someone under the age of 18 who helps to care for a family member, relative or friend. Primary legislation governing young carers under the age of 18 is the Children and Families Act 2014, which works in tandem with the Care Act to ensure a cohesive approach. This includes the requirement to consider a whole family approach when assessing an adult’s needs to consider whether a child or young person is providing care and what impact this has on their wellbeing. The local authority told us young people waited approximately 2 to 3 weeks for an assessment from the date of their referral, which was an improvement on the 6 to 8 week waiting time between August and October 2024. Local authority guidance for adult social care staff highlighted the importance of young carer assessments and provided a link to a ‘family directory’. This had no search function and was not easy to navigate to find relevant information about making a referral or supporting a young carer. Information was available on the local authority’s website about the process of a young carer’s assessment, which indicated a young carers assessment required a referral from a professional or parent or carer and a visit to a face-to-face appointment in a specific children’s centre near the Hull border. It was not clear from the information online whether this could be made more accessible for people. In places, the local authority website was confusing about what constituted a young carer: in one definition, a young person cared for someone close to them, and in another it was a parent who was cared for. These issues may have affected how young people, particularly those approaching transition to adult services, perceived themselves as young carers or whether they reached out for support.

People were given help, advice and information about how to access services, facilities and other agencies for help with non-eligible care and support needs. The local authority’s Your Life, Your Way website provided an online directory of support available in the community. Libraries and other community venues also provided information and advice to meet people’s needs, alongside the local authority’s contact centre, where staff had been trained to direct people effectively.

The Information and Advice Hub were able to direct people to services in the community to meet their non-eligible care and support needs. Staff shared examples of directing people to the community sector, benefits support services, food banks and where to get furniture and white goods when they had moved to the area. Services were available to support young people when transitioning between children’s and adults’ services to support independence, including tailored, trauma-informed career planning and links to supported internships or work programmes. An income maximisation service was available for people aged over 50, alongside home and befriending services, to support non-eligible needs.

The local authority’s framework for eligibility for care and support was transparent and clear. Guidance was available to staff that supported eligibility decision making, clearly in line with the national eligibility criteria.

There was no separate appeals process, with eligibility concerns managed through their complaints process. Of the 150 complaints made to the local authority regarding adult social care between June 2024 and June 2025, none appeared to be related to eligibility decisions.

National data indicated 72.59% of people did not buy any additional care or support privately or pay more to ‘top up’ their care and support, which was better than the England average of 64.39% (Adult Social Care Survey - ASCS, 2024). This indicated for the majority of people, local authority funded care met their needs, and they did not need to purchase additional care and support.

The local authority’s website provided some information linked to eligibility. On webpages related to assessments, the local authority described that eligibility decisions would be made but did not clearly articulate or link to these specifically in the language of the eligibility criteria. For example, in information about a carer’s assessment, people were encouraged to prepare for their assessment by considering questions that related to the listed outcomes of the eligibility criteria. It was not specifically outlined, however, how this would be used to determine eligibility and therefore could have been clearer for people.

Some work had begun on paying for care information in response to concerns about financial assessments. One carer described the information provided as a minefield. Information in the ‘paying for care’ booklet had caused confusion which the local authority was exploring correcting at the time of our assessment.

The local authority shared several complaints made to the LGSCO by people related to financial assessments. These related to delays, communication, and decision making. The local authority received 150 complaints between June 2024 and May 2025: 34 were formal complaints. Of these 23% related to financial processes and transparency and 7% related to direct payments and budget management. This included the need for clear, documented financial discussions to support people and any other relevant individuals to understand contributions to care costs. Complaints were categorized by the main concern so other complaints may have included concerns about financial assessments and complaints resolved outside of the formal process were not analysed in the same way.

At the time of our assessment in June 2025, 158 people were awaiting financial assessment, with a median waiting time to start the financial assessment of 18 days. The local authority told us that assessments were prioritised based on need, with direct payments being allocated promptly to ensure personal budgets and contributions were set before a care package began. The local authority’s recording system did not allow for reporting on the completion of financial assessments, only the start date. They told us most assessments once started were completed on the same day, though some could take longer to complete due to a need to consider the persons capacity or a request for further details. Leaders told us financial assessment delays did not impact on the care provided to individuals. Efforts were underway to move financial assessments earlier in the financial pathway, enabling people to make informed choices, understand care costs upfront, enhance transparency, reduce delays in assessments and invoicing, and improve the overall customer experience. Leaders also told us there was more to do to have earlier conversations with people who fund their own care if their funds depleted while they received care and support. The local authority made a ‘quick calculator’ available online to support self-service. There was mandatory e-learning for staff on paying for care to improve early conversations with people about contributions and financial assessments.

An advocate can help a person express their needs and wishes and weigh up and make decisions about the options available to them. They can help them find services, make sure correct procedures are followed and challenge decisions made by local authorities or other organisations. The local authority had a commissioned advocacy provider in place who supported people to access statutory advocacy.

The advocacy contract provided appropriate advocates for people to participate fully in Care Act assessments and Mental Capacity assessments. The advocacy provider reported an increase in advocacy requests, specifically in relation to reviews, which they attributed to the awareness raising work they had done with staff. It took between 2 and 4 weeks for advocates to be allocated. Staff told us there was an adequate number of available advocates to meet the needs of people.

Guidance for staff completing assessments and reviews for people who used care and support and carers encouraged staff to consider the use of advocates. This didn’t link to guidance on how to request an independent advocate or any considerations about when using an informal advocate may need to be reconsidered, for example in any conflicts of interest. It was not always clear from documentation we reviewed whether independent advocacy had been considered and specifically who acted as an advocate for a person. Staff told us advocacy was prominent in their assessments and one of the first things they considered.