The government has a 10-year vision for Adult Social Care. It sets out in the White Paper ‘People at the Heart of Care’. The first step in achieving this vision is the implementation of financial reforms.
The Fair Cost of Care exercise aimed to ensure the social care market remained sustainable when the Care Cap was introduced in October 2023. It focused on ages 65 and up residential care providers and ages 18 and up homecare providers. This was supported by the Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability grant of £600m in 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025.
The Department of Health and Social Care needed documents to be submitted to them by 14 October 2022. This was for local authorities to be considered eligible for future funding from the Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability grant.
We submitted all the required documentation to the Department of Health and Social Care on 14 October 2022. This submission included -
- Annex A – detail from the costing exercise undertaken with providers
- Annex B – reports detailing the process followed for both ages 65 and up residential care, and ages 18 and up homecare
- Annex C – a provisional Market Sustainability Plan
The submission was on 14 October 2022. There have been many changes to this approach by the government. This includes the Care Cap being pushed back by 2 years. The Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability grant is included in the wider social care funding.
We want to be transparent and open in line with the DHSC requirements. As a result, we have published the Annex B reports. The reports are for residential care, homecare and our Market Sustainability Plan.