Discharge Fund Grant Determination 2024 to 2025
Published 15 April 2024
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2024
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/discharge-fund-grant-determination-2024-to-2025/discharge-fund-grant-determination-2024-to-2025
Discharge Fund (Revenue) Grant Determination (2024-25): No 31/7246
The Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Local Government (“the Minister”), in exercise of the powers conferred by section 31 of the Local Government Act 2003, makes the following determination:
Citation
1. This determination may be cited as the Discharge Fund (Revenue) Grant Determination (2024-25): No 31/7246
Purpose of the grant
2. The purpose of the grant is to provide support to local authorities in England towards expenditure lawfully incurred or to be incurred by them, up to 31 March 2025.
3. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is providing this funding to support local authorities to build additional adult social care and community-based reablement capacity to reduce hospital discharge delays through delivering sustainable improvements to services for individuals.
Determination
4. The Minister determines as the authorities to which grant is to be paid and the amount of grant to be paid, the authorities and the amounts set out in Annex A.
Grant conditions
5. Pursuant to section [31(3) and] 31(4) of the Local Government Act 2003, the Minister determines that the grant will be paid subject to the conditions in Annex B.
Treasury consent
6. Before making this determination in relation to local authorities in England, the Minister obtained the consent of the Treasury.
UK Government Branding
7. The recipient authority shall at all times during and following the end of the funding period:
7.1 comply with requirements of the Branding Manual in relation to the funded activities; and
7.2 cease use of the “Funded by UK Government” logo on demand if directed to do so by the Authority.
8. Branding Manual means the HM Government of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland ‘Funded by UK Government branding manual](https://gcs.civilservice.gov.uk/guidance/marketing/branding-guidelines/)’ first published by the Cabinet Office in November 2022 including any subsequent updates from time to time.
Signed by authority of the Parliamentary under Secretary of State for Local Government
Angelica Larkin, Deputy Director
Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities
April 2024
Annex A: Discharge Fund allocations to local authorities 2024-25
| Local Authority* | Discharge Fund 2024-25 |
|---|---|
| Barking And Dagenham | £2,501,842 |
| Barnet | £2,248,203 |
| Barnsley | £3,142,919 |
| Bath And North East Somerset | £1,145,657 |
| Bedford | £795,582 |
| Bexley | £1,545,953 |
| Birmingham | £15,870,077 |
| Blackburn with Darwen | £1,950,881 |
| Blackpool | £2,541,170 |
| Bolton | £3,475,791 |
| Bournemouth, Christchurch and Poole | £3,140,153 |
| Bracknell Forest | £356,309 |
| Bradford | £5,465,005 |
| Brent | £3,118,175 |
| Brighton And Hove | £2,210,253 |
| Bristol | £3,975,962 |
| Bromley | £1,806,343 |
| Buckinghamshire Council | £1,177,860 |
| Bury | £1,782,494 |
| Calderdale | £1,971,283 |
| Cambridgeshire | £3,544,989 |
| Camden | £3,008,204 |
| Central Bedfordshire | £650,119 |
| Cheshire East | £2,034,249 |
| Cheshire West and Chester | £2,529,412 |
| City of London | £75,627 |
| Cornwall | £5,691,206 |
| Coventry | £3,688,931 |
| Croydon | £2,331,526 |
| Cumberland | £3,415,329 |
| Darlington | £1,048,716 |
| Derby | £2,814,487 |
| Derbyshire | £8,349,439 |
| Devon | £6,805,895 |
| Doncaster | £3,811,151 |
| Dorset Council | £2,909,250 |
| Dudley | £3,885,297 |
| Durham | £7,212,475 |
| Ealing | £2,962,749 |
| East Riding of Yorkshire | £2,715,451 |
| East Sussex | £5,088,412 |
| Enfield | £2,739,948 |
| Essex | £10,837,475 |
| Gateshead | £2,660,648 |
| Gloucestershire | £4,679,047 |
| Greenwich | £3,606,410 |
| Hackney | £3,887,410 |
| Halton | £1,631,460 |
| Hammersmith And Fulham | £2,343,005 |
| Hampshire | £7,308,878 |
| Haringey | £2,291,403 |
| Harrow | £1,557,029 |
| Hartlepool | £1,252,026 |
| Havering | £1,594,747 |
| Herefordshire | £1,584,906 |
| Hertfordshire | £5,503,956 |
| Hillingdon | £1,744,957 |
| Hounslow | £1,910,027 |
| Isle of Wight | £1,444,070 |
| Isles of Scilly | £19,041 |
| Islington | £3,388,340 |
| Kensington And Chelsea | £1,790,319 |
| Kent | £11,686,630 |
| Kingston upon Hull | £4,187,359 |
| Kingston upon Thames | £429,907 |
| Kirklees | £4,164,306 |
| Knowsley | £2,834,877 |
| Lambeth | £3,492,439 |
| Lancashire | £12,839,131 |
| Leeds | £7,393,289 |
| Leicester | £4,102,317 |
| Leicestershire | £4,133,661 |
| Lewisham | £3,491,339 |
| Lincolnshire | £8,004,560 |
| Liverpool | £8,411,842 |
| Luton | £1,748,021 |
| Manchester | £7,418,673 |
| Medway | £1,707,502 |
| Merton | £1,170,582 |
| Middlesbrough | £2,020,229 |
| Milton Keynes | £1,443,144 |
| Newcastle upon Tyne | £3,942,731 |
| Newham | £4,017,287 |
| Norfolk | £9,257,435 |
| North East Lincolnshire | £1,883,000 |
| North Lincolnshire | £1,691,199 |
| North Northamptonshire | £2,692,612 |
| North Somerset | £1,632,343 |
| North Tyneside | £2,238,155 |
| North Yorkshire | £4,049,035 |
| Northumberland | £2,919,808 |
| Nottingham | £3,879,480 |
| Nottinghamshire | £7,224,972 |
| Oldham | £2,614,146 |
| Oxfordshire | £2,501,441 |
| Peterborough | £1,747,775 |
| Plymouth | £3,021,992 |
| Portsmouth | £2,013,364 |
| Reading | £629,170 |
| Redbridge | £2,355,651 |
| Redcar And Cleveland | £1,618,823 |
| Richmond upon Thames | £181,424 |
| Rochdale | £2,868,923 |
| Rotherham | £3,383,583 |
| Rutland | £51,130 |
| Salford | £3,291,688 |
| Sandwell | £5,379,281 |
| Sefton | £3,674,579 |
| Sheffield | £6,843,975 |
| Shropshire | £2,772,051 |
| Slough | £932,183 |
| Solihull | £1,506,429 |
| Somerset | £5,461,339 |
| South Gloucestershire | £1,082,481 |
| South Tyneside | £2,449,975 |
| Southampton | £2,501,325 |
| Southend-on-Sea | £1,821,995 |
| Southwark | £4,170,284 |
| St. Helens | £2,450,857 |
| Staffordshire | £7,642,936 |
| Stockport | £2,269,178 |
| Stockton-on-Tees | £1,675,817 |
| Stoke-on-Trent | £3,597,902 |
| Suffolk | £6,778,023 |
| Sunderland | £4,365,730 |
| Surrey | £2,665,722 |
| Sutton | £950,323 |
| Swindon | £1,260,732 |
| Tameside | £2,940,706 |
| Telford And Wrekin | £1,828,085 |
| Thurrock | £1,301,383 |
| Torbay | £2,065,023 |
| Tower Hamlets | £3,927,968 |
| Trafford | £1,921,750 |
| Wakefield | £4,071,007 |
| Walsall | £3,313,591 |
| Waltham Forest | £2,216,628 |
| Wandsworth | £3,968,836 |
| Warrington | £1,451,268 |
| Warwickshire | £3,536,104 |
| West Berkshire | £188,450 |
| Westmorland and Furness | £2,173,973 |
| West Northamptonshire | £2,352,771 |
| West Sussex | £4,816,440 |
| Westminster | £4,123,941 |
| Wigan | £3,916,938 |
| Wiltshire | £2,393,210 |
| Windsor And Maidenhead | £527,237 |
| Wirral | £4,495,437 |
| Wokingham | £110,250 |
| Wolverhampton | £3,449,153 |
| Worcestershire | £4,445,333 |
| York | £1,254,495 |
| England | £500,000,000 |
*Funding paid to local authorities with responsibility for social care only.
Allocations may not sum to exact totals due to rounding.
Annex B: Grant conditions
1. In this Annex:
a. “a recipient authority” means a local authority listed in Annex A to this determination;
b. “the Department” means the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities;
a. “the Minister” means the Parliamentary Under Secretary of State for Local Government
Use of grant
2. A recipient authority must:
a. Pool this funding into the local Better Care Fund (BCF), with plans for health and social care spend (including mental health) agreed by the local authority and integrated care board chief executive, and signed off by the Health and Wellbeing Board under national condition 1 of the BCF by 10 June.
b. Use this funding, in conjunction with wider funding (including relevant Better Care Fund investment) to build additional adult social care and community-based reablement capacity to reduce hospital discharge delays through delivering sustainable improvements to services for individuals.
c. Plan how best to deploy this funding over the funding period of 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025, taking account of likely variation in levels of demand over the course of the year, including winter pressures. Local authorities must work with local providers to determine how best to build the workforce capacity needed for additional services.
d. Deploy the funding in ways that support the principles of ‘Discharge to Assess’, to enable timely discharge from hospital with appropriate short-term support, where needed, pending assessment of long-term care needs.
e. 1. Local authorities must deploy the funding in ways that take account of learning from previous discharge funding, including but not limited to the evaluation of the 2022 to 2023 Discharge Fund published on 11 December 2023.
f. Submit plans for how they intend to deploy the funding and comply with the reporting requirements set out in paragraph 4 of this Annex.
3. A recipient authority must not:
a. Use this funding to compensate for expenditure already incurred, activities for which the local authority has already earmarked or allocated expenditure, or to fund inflationary pressures.
b. Use this funding for activities which do not support the primary purpose of this grant.
Reporting requirements
4. Local authorities will be required to work with their integrated care board to provide the following to the BCF programme team, as part of their BCF plan, using compulsory templates made available through the BCF exchange:
a. A report detailing how the local authority plans to spend all their allocation over 2024-25, due by 10 June 2024. This must outline how the local authority plans to use the funding to increase expenditure on discharge and confirm that the use of the funding has been agreed by the local authority and the integrated care board. One planned spending report must be submitted per local authority;
b. Quarterly activity reports, setting out what activities have been delivered in line with commitments in the spending plan; and,
c. A final spending report provided to the department alongside the wider end of year BCF reports.
5. The government may follow up with local authorities to better understand the approach taken to planning use of the funding, and reserves the right to require ad hoc additional reporting to be provided in certain types of circumstances. This may include but is not limited to circumstances where:
a. it is reasonably believed that spending plans collected in paragraph 4 above may potentially breach funding conditions; or,
b. data shows that delayed discharges are significantly higher or increasing at a greater rate than national averages; or,
c. reported and planned spend varies significantly; or,
d. there are concerns about the quality of reporting.
6. Local authorities must engage fully with this process where necessary. Integrated care boards (including relevant trusts) and local authorities will be expected to implement recommendations provided by the support programme teams.
7. Local authorities may use up to 2% of their total allocation for reasonable administrative costs associated with distributing and reporting on this funding.
Payment arrangements
8. The grant funding set out in Annex A will be paid in monthly instalments.
9. Funding from the grant must be spent within the designated financial year. If any funding from the grant is not spent within the designated financial year, the Minister may require repayment of the grant monies paid, as may be determined by the Minister and notified in writing to the recipient authority.
Financial management
10. The recipient authority must maintain a sound system of internal financial controls.
11. If a recipient authority has any grounds for suspecting financial irregularity in the use of any grant paid under this funding agreement, it must notify the department immediately, explain what steps are being taken to investigate the suspicion and keep the Department informed about the progress of the investigation. For these purposes ‘financial irregularity’ includes fraud or other impropriety, mismanagement, and the use of grant for purposes other than those for which it was provided.
Breach of conditions and recovery of grant
12. If the recipient authority fails to comply with any of these conditions, or if any overpayment is made under this grant, or any amount is paid in error, the Secretary of State may reduce, suspend or withhold grant payments or require the repayment of the whole or any part of the grant monies paid, as may be determined by the Secretary of State and notified in writing to the local authority.
13. Such sum as has been notified will immediately become repayable to the Secretary of State who may set off the sum against any future amount due to the recipient authority from central government.