Guidance

Local authority social services letter 2023

Updated 19 February 2024

Applies to England

Summary

This letter clarifies local authority-specific revenue funding for the financial year 2023 to 2024, which was subject to the 2021 Spending Review. This includes information on:

• the Local Reform and Community Voices grant
• Social Care in Prisons grant
• War Pensions Disregard grant

It also provides details of some elements of the Better Care Fund.

Action

This letter is provided for information only, and confirms details and allocations of Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) local authority-specific revenue funding.

Timelines

These grants will be paid to local authorities in February 2024.

Specific revenue funding

Local Reform and Community Voices grant

DHSC will make £34.41 million available through the Local Reform and Community Voices Section 31 grant in 2023 to 2024. This grant is comprised of the following funding streams:

• funding for deprivation of liberty safeguards (DoLS) in hospitals^{[footnote 1]} (£5.15 million)
• local Healthwatch organisation funding^{[footnote 2]} (£14.15 million)
• funding for independent NHS complaints advocacy services (£15.11 million)

Local authorities have a duty under the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007 (as amended by the Health and Social Care Act 2012) to ensure that an effective local Healthwatch organisation is operating in their area, delivering the activities set out in the legislation. The Local Reform and Community Voices grant provides one element of the non-ringfenced funding provided for local Healthwatch, with the larger proportion having been rolled into the local government finance settlement in 2011 to 2012.

Social Care in Prisons grant

DHSC will make £10.95 million available through the Social Care in Prisons Section 31 grant in 2023 to 2024 (this makes up part of the Care Act funding covered in further detail below).

The Care Act 2014 establishes that the local authority in which a prison, approved premises or bail accommodation is based will be responsible for assessing and meeting the care and support needs of the offenders residing there. The provision of care and support for those in custodial settings is based on the principle of equivalence to provision in the community. The Care Act 2014 clarifies the application of Part 1 for people in custodial settings, including aspects that do not apply.

This funding is allocated to prisons in proportion to the most appropriate prison population type (such as total population, by age categories or first receptions). We use the prison population information from the offender management statistics quarterly (October to December 2022 and January to March 2023 editions) published by the Ministry of Justice (MoJ). Where appropriate, we adjust the prison population to take account of additional MoJ information on estimated average prison capacity across 2023 to 2024 to account for prison population fluctuations.

HMP Fosse Way is a new prison that officially opened in June 2023 and received some prisoners slightly earlier. We followed the same approach to calculate the Fosse Way allocation, but used the reported population by age group at end of June 2023 to estimate the age distribution of its estimated 2023 to 2024 capacity. In addition, the Fosse Way allocation was set at three-quarters of a full year allocation.

The allocations for each prison for all assessments and services are added together for all prisons located within the same local authority for the local authority level allocation, which are weighted by the area cost adjustment (ACA). The ACA aims to reflect differences in staff and other costs between areas. The postcode of each prison is used to identify the local authority in which it is based.

War Pensions Scheme Disregard grant

DHSC consulted in November 2016 about the allocation of new funding to disregard (for the purposes of social care charging) all payments made under the War Pensions Scheme with the exception of Constant Attendance Allowance.

The consultation response was published in February 2017, and concluded that this fund should be allocated by using the adult social care relative needs formula to weight the number of war pensioners by social care need and then divide to local authorities based on this. This option was chosen because it:

• gets as close as possible (given the available data) to the number of people receiving a war pension who have also met the adult social care eligibility criteria by incorporating separate data on the distribution of these 2 relevant characteristics
• was supported by the majority of respondents to the consultation

DHSC will make £12 million available through the War Pensions Scheme Disregard Section 31 grant in 2023 to 2024.

Care Act funding

Additional funding was rolled into the local government settlement in 2016 to 2017 to address the new burdens arising in 2020 to 2021 from the Care Act 2014. This funding supported local authorities to meet a range of duties including:

• carer assessments and support
• access to advocacy support
• adult safeguarding
• ensuring continuity of care for people moving areas

The Department of Levelling Up, Housing and Communities previously published visible lines to show the distribution of this funding up to and including 2020 to 2021 when the value of this Care Act funding was £522.22 million, including £258.74 million for carers.

Funding for duties under the Care Act 2014 is now part of local authorities’ baseline funding and it is at their discretion how it is spent. The Better Care Fund also includes £169.28 million for support of carers under the Care Act (as detailed below).

Better Care Fund

Revenue funding

£196.93 million of revenue funding within the Better Care Fund is linked to a range of duties for local authorities in 2022 to 2023. This should provide for duties included in the Care Act 2014 that commenced in 2015 to 2016, focusing on support for carers (£169.28 million, see below).

The funding also includes provision for independent mental health advocacy and the disregard for Guaranteed Income Payments for veterans, and money to offset financial pressures on the care and support system that may be created by changes to the pensions and benefit systems.

Independent mental health advocacy

In 2013 to 2014 and 2014 to 2015, the Local Reform and Community Voices grant contained funding for the transfer to local authorities of responsibility for commissioning independent mental health advocacy services. In 2015 to 2016, this funding stream was moved into the Better Care Fund.

Local authorities continue to have a duty under the Mental Health Act 1983 (as amended by the Mental Health Act 2007 and the Health and Social Care Act 2012) to make arrangements to enable every qualifying patient who wants to have one to have access to independent mental health advocacy.

Qualifying patients are defined in Section 130C of the Mental Health Act 1983 and include:

• those who are detained under provisions (other than emergency provisions) of the Mental Health Act 1983
• all patients on Community Treatment Orders
• all patients subject to guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983

Subsidy control

Local authorities should ensure they comply with their obligations under the Subsidy Control Act 2022 and the relevant UK subsidy control regime: statutory guidance.

Enquiries

For further information on these allocations, contact:

The Social Care Finance Team
Social Care Strategy and Reform Directorate
Department of Health and Social Care
39 Victoria Street
London
SW1H 0EU

Email: scfinance-enquiries@dhsc.gov.uk

1. In addition to the funding outlined here, these services are supported through the local government finance settlement 2023 to 2024. ↩

2. 2023 to 2024 funding level as per the Care Act 2014 impact assessment. ↩