Councils get £11.8m for data collection

Councils will get an extra £11.8m of funding to support the move to a new social care data collection system, due to be phased in over coming years.

An expanded set of social care data is due to be collected and published annually by the Health and Social Care Information Centre.

The Department of Health says the statistics will help to improve social care standards, rather than simply counting activities and processes.

In order to support the new data collection requirements, the DH will give local authorities an extra £11.8m of funding for implementation.

In 2010, the HSCIC led a review to consider the types of data that councils would need in order to understand their performance and outcomes.

The review recommended changes to data collections, which will be phased in over the next couple of years.

These include; a new safeguarding collection; a new data item on staff qualifications; and a new Short and Long-Term Support collection and finance collection.

Each local authority will receive money to cover costs of moving to the new data collection system, which forms part of wider work to transform the care and support system to be more integrated.

Care and support minister Norman Lamb said: “The data we currently collect from local authorities about adult social care is outdated and has not kept pace with the transformation into the new care and support system.

“The new data will help us to see how each council is performing in delivering better results for people in local communities who use care,” he said.

“This will give councils the information they need to deliver care and support that is integrated, personalised and responsive.”