Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what steps she is taking to ensure the national allocation of funding for adult social care reflects (a) the number of autistic adults and (b) their potential level of need.

Public spending on adult social care is funded from both local Government revenue and central Government grants and therefore has to be viewed as part of the wider local Government funding settlement. The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities is responsible for the financial framework within which local Government operates and for ensuring the sufficiency of local Government funding.

Central Government grants for adult social care are largely distributed using the Adult Social Care Relative Needs Formulae, which are developed by independent researchers to reflect differences in councils’ need for local authority funded social care, to ensure councils funding reflects the relative level of need in their area. These formulae account for a range of factors including population, income and wealth, levels of impairment and availability of unpaid care support.

Local authorities have discretion over how to use their funding to meet the needs of their local population, including those of autistic adults.