Question to the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government:

To ask the Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, what estimate his Department is using for projected rates of dementia in the technical review of local authorities’ needs and resources.

The Government is undertaking a review of the relative needs and resources of local authorities in England, with a view to setting fresh baseline funding levels in 2020-21. We are working closely with local government representatives and others to consider the drivers of local authorities’ costs, the resources available locally to fund services, and how we should account for these in a way that draws a more transparent and understandable link between local circumstances and resource allocations.

The Government recognises the importance of getting its approach to Adult Social Care funding right and has identified this as a service area which will require a specific funding formula. The Government believes that the best available option is to deploy the most up-to-date formula available, which offers appropriate levels of analytical robustness. Our leading option, as set out in our December 2018 consultation, is to base a formula on work commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care and undertaken by LG Futures (a specialist consultancy firm), together with the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent and the London School of Economics and Political Science. This formula uses population projections and provides a robust and contemporary measure of need for all Adult Social Care services across England, including care for those with dementia.

Further information on this research can be found at:

https://www.pssru.ac.uk/project-pages/adult-social-care-rnf-review/.