Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what estimate he has made of the funding spent by his Department to date on preparing for the introduction of social care reforms in October 2023.

We estimate expenditure of approximately £20 million to date preparing for the introduction of adult social care charging reform, of which £18.4 million has been allocated to local authorities through grant funding. The remaining funding has been allocated to central programme costs.

Of the £18.4 million, £15.5 million was issued to all local authorities for the recruitment of additional assessment staff and to embed necessary technology upgrades for the charging reforms. The remaining £2.9 million was issued to five trailblazer authorities, which are due to implement these reforms at an earlier stage, to enable needs and financial assessments.