Question to the Department of Health and Social Care:

To ask the Secretary of State for Health, how many local authorities have a named autism lead.

The Department commissions Public Health England to carry out an annual national autism self-assessment exercise. As part of the latest exercise, which reported on progress by the end of September 2013, across all 152 local authority areas in England, 151 areas said that they have a named joint commissioner/senior manager responsible for services for adults with autism. This exercise will next be carried out towards the end of 2014.

The Department intends to publish draft statutory guidance for consultation to support Think Autism, the update to the 2010 Adult Autism Strategy for England, in August.