See answers to previous information requests

1. Please provide a copy of the document or documents submitted to the DHSC as outlined in condition 3 of the Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund 2024 to 2025 Guidance as per the below:
“Condition 3: As set out in the grant determination, the initial 2024 to 2025 report must be submitted by 11:59pm on 22 May 2024 and must include:
• confirmation that the local authority has allocated its share of the grant in full to adult social care, in line with condition 1
• confirmation that the local authority has used its share of the £162 million Fair Cost of Care component of the fund to maintain fee uplifts originally made as part of the 2022 to 2023 Market Sustainability and Fair Cost of Care Fund
• confirmation of which of the 3 target areas the local authority will seek further improvements in (local authorities must select at least one), alongside planned spend on each
• reporting against all the required metrics set out in the ‘Activities and metrics’ section of this guidance*

* The initial 2024 to 2025 report (May 2024) must include the following metrics:
• final average external provider local authority fee rate in 2023 to 2024
• average provisional external provider local authority fee rate in 2024 to 2025
• free text to provide additional context on the report if required”
Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) plans to publish, sometime later in 2024, average times between request and assessment and request and service, broken down by service type, at local authority level as part of the monthly adult social care statistics publication, as part of future CLD publications. Statistics that they publish are available here: https://www.gov.uk/government/organisations/department-of-health-and-social-care/about/statistics. The Council are therefore applying Section 21 (publicly accessible) and Section 22 (Future Publication) exemptions to this request.