First local authority adults’ services assessments published by CQC

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has published reports of the findings from its first formal assessments.

The assessments were completed under the inspectorate’s new responsibility to assess how local authorities are meeting their adult social care duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014, following being given new powers from the Health and Care Act 2022 to provide ‘meaningful and independent’ assessments of care at the local authority and ICS level.

Three local authorities were assessed by inspectors against quality statements in a new ‘single assessment framework’. Hertfordshire County Council, London Borough of Hounslow, and West Berkshire Council all received a rating of ‘Good’.

The authorities are the first to be formally assessed part of the CQC’s programme to evaluate all 153 local authorities in England with adult social care responsibilities, which started in December 2023.

CQC says it developed the assessment approach following extensive co-production with partners, care providers, stakeholders, and people who use health and social care services and their families, and tested the approach through 5 pilot assessments carried out last year.

The reports mark the regulator’s first published assessments of local authority adult social care services performance since 2010, when the previous rating system was scrapped by the coalition government.

The ratings were underpinned by scores of 1 (indicating significant shortfalls in performance) to 4 (an exceptional standard) across nine quality statements.

The CQC’s judgments were based on, amongst other sources, feedback and surveys of people receiving care and support, feedback from carers and staff, the views of providers and relevant community groups plus an analysis of performance data and studies of a sample of cases.

One of the authorities in the first cohort to be assessed was London Borough of Hounslow. Cllr Samia Chaudhary, Cabinet Member for Adult Social Care, Public Health and Transformation, at the London Borough of Hounslow said the “CQC's recognition of our efforts reaffirms our dedication in striving to provide people with positive experiences when using adult social care services.”

“While we celebrate these achievements, we recognise the imperative to continuously enhance our services and will continue to do so through our improvement agenda.”
James Bullion, CQC’s Chief Inspector of Adult Social Care and Integrated Care, praised the Council's efforts, highlighting its collaboration with partners to promote independence and resilience among residents. However, he also emphasised the need for improvement in areas such as carers' support and access to services.

He said: “Overall, Hounslow Council should be really pleased with this assessment. They’ve built a great foundation on which to build their future plans and make improvements. We look forward to returning to see how they’ve done this and how their current plans mature.”