Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health and Social Care, what progress has been made on the development of practice guidance aimed at local authority adult safeguarding teams to bring local practice in line across the England.

In January 2022, the Chief Social Worker for Adults published an independent briefing ‘Revisiting safeguarding practice' to support social workers and other local authority adult safeguarding practitioners to carry out their duties effectively under the Care Act 2014.

We are also preparing to introduce a new duty for the Care Quality Commission to assess local authorities’ delivery of adult social care duties under Part 1 of the Care Act as part of the Health and Care Bill, which we anticipate will include adult safeguarding. These assessments will provide a greater understanding of practice and provision at local level and enable good practice to be shared nationally.