The following is the final grant determination and conditions for the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund, as circulated to all local authorities by the Department for Levelling Up Communities in April 2022. This includes allocations to local authorities for 2022 to 2023, which were issued alongside the Final local government finance settlement for 2022 to 2023.

Following an announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer on 29 July 2024, the planned adult social care charging reforms, which were inherited from the previous government, will not be taken forward in October 2025.

This guidance is intended to support local authorities in administering the Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund. It sets out best practice and provides templates.

The intended audience of this guidance is local authority directors of adult social services, commissioners and any other staff who are involved in the commissioning and managing of adult social care services and budgets. Adult social care providers are also encouraged to read this guidance as provider engagement is critical to the activities described.

The guidance sets out that:

the primary purpose of the fund is to support local authorities to move towards paying providers a fair cost of care and to prepare their markets for adult social care reform – a fair and sustainable care market is fundamental to the government’s reforms to adult social care
as a condition of receiving future funding, local authorities will need to evidence the work they are doing to prepare their markets by submitting cost of care exercise reports, market sustainability plans and a spend report to the Department of Health and Social Care by 14 October 2022, and provides templates for each of these

Published 24 March 2022
Last updated 27 September 2024 + show all updates

27 September 2024
Added a note stating that, following an announcement by the Chancellor of the Exchequer, the planned adult social care charging reforms, which were inherited from the previous government, will not be taken forward in October 2025.
18 December 2023
Updated 'Cost of care reports and market sustainability plans by local authority' to add links for Sandwell.
10 May 2023
Replaced 'Annex G: cost of care reports' with a new attachment 'Cost of care reports and market sustainability plans by local authority'.
10 March 2023
Added cost of care report to Annex G for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea.
6 March 2023
Updated link in Annex G for Gloucestershire
1 March 2023
Added Annex G, cost of care reports from local authorities
1 February 2023
Updated with a revised version of 'Annex C: market sustainability plan template'.
18 January 2023
Updated 'Market sustainability and fair cost of care fund 2022 to 2023: guidance' and 'Annex C: market sustainability plan template' to state that the deadline for submission of local authorities' final market sustainability plans is now 27 March 2023, replacing the previous February 2023 deadline. Replaced draft 'Grant determination and conditions 2022 to 2023' with final grant determinations. Added a note stating that, following an announcement in the government’s Autumn Statement 2022, the planned adult social care charging reforms are now delayed until October 2025.
7 October 2022
Updated the section on local authority returns in the 'Market sustainability and fair cost of care fund 2022 to 2023: guidance' with information about how to submit returns online.
30 September 2022
Replaced 'Annex A: example grant template' with a new version. Changes are: Includes additional instructions and guidance setting out that the fair cost of care exercise will be submitted online – details will be shared with as much notice as possible before 14 October 2022; Total cost line is no longer forced to be the sum of the subtotal cost lines – this gives local authorities flexibility to enter whatever median-based total is most analytically appropriate, given their available data; Added a series of data validation conditions designed to help local authorities familiarise themselves with the data validation conditions that will be part of the online submission.
25 August 2022
Updated 'Annex A: example grant template' with a technical revision to allow for local authorities to use their best judgement on how to approach calculating cost lines, subject to the published guidance. Alongside some other small additions – including the consideration of NHS funded nursing care and the inclusion of 2021 to 2022 data – local authorities are now able to choose whether subtotals should be the sum of the underlying detail row medians, or whether another approach should be taken, such as calculating the overall median for that subcategory.
29 June 2022
Added link to new LGA and Association of Directors of Adult Social Services care home cost of care tool.
24 March 2022
First published.

Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund 2022 to 2023: guidance

Applies to England

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