We have published a report on how local authorities in England are performing in delivering adult social care. Our report: Local authority assessments 2023 to 2026: Emerging themes and findings, brings together insights from our first national programme of local authority assessments. Drawing on findings from local authorities assessed under Part 1 of the Care Act since December 2023, it provides the most comprehensive national picture to date of how local authorities are meeting the needs of people who use adult social care services.
The report, based on 143 of local authority assessments already published, finds that local authorities are broadly performing well in the face of significant challenges, with 60% rated as good, 35% rated as requires improvement, 3% rated as outstanding and 2% rated as inadequate.
However, we caution that many local authorities rated as good sit at the lower end of that threshold, suggesting there is room for improvement and for those rated as requires improvement some are nearer to being rated as good, while others are closer to inadequate.
The report identifies a number of key themes:
Strong leadership within a local authority is the single most important factor when it comes to determining the quality of people’s experience of care, from first contact to receiving help or using a service.
We found some examples of systemic weaknesses in governance, oversight and assurance of safeguarding.
Prevention, and supporting people to maintain their health, wellbeing and independence, have emerged as critical. In authorities without an effective prevention strategy the gaps show up everywhere.
Assessing needs was found to be a significant area of weakness in some areas, with delays in care assessments and reviews affecting both people using services and their unpaid carers.
Local authorities that were managing equalities well understood their communities and had well-resourced co-produced strategies and action plans on how they could tackle inequality.
Identifying unpaid carers and providing inconsistent access to support for them emerged as persistent and systemic issues. Identifying unpaid carers was highlighted as the biggest issue, as they are often only seen when in crisis.
Transitions from children's to adult services were identified as one of the most persistent areas of risk, with unwarranted variation in people's experience during this period.
We saw stark variation in co-production and commissioning and a lack of nationally consistent standards.
Co-production is most effective when people with lived experience clearly inform and influence what services are commissioned, how resources are allocated and how services are delivered.
There is no statistically significant relationship between the average Index of Multiple Deprivation scores for local authorities and their overall ratings.
Chris Badger, Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care, said:
"This report represents a significant milestone – for the first time, we have a comprehensive national picture of how local authorities are meeting their responsibilities to meet people’s care and support needs across England. We found overall that local authorities are rising to meet some very real and very complex challenges, and there is much to celebrate in the commitment and skill we've seen from staff and leaders across the country. However, we found too much variation in the delivery of the key foundations of adult social care provision, highlighting a gap in national standards about what people, providers and partners can expect.
One of the more striking findings is that we did not find a statistically significant relationship between deprivation and performance. That doesn't mean deprivation doesn't matter – it absolutely does. But it tells us that strong leadership, effective commissioning and prevention strategies, as well as a genuine commitment to co-production can make a real difference regardless of local circumstances, and that good outcomes are possible in every context.
Prevention also stood out as a critical theme. Where it's working well it runs through everything – from how carers are identified, to how transitions are managed, to how safeguarding concerns are picked up early. The local authorities that get prevention right tend to get a lot of other things right too."
The findings in this report are not just a measure of where the sector is today – they are a roadmap for where it needs to go. We hope local authorities; their partners and national decision-makers will use these insights to drive the improvements that people relying on adult social care so urgently need."