Councils' waiting times for adult social care services will be published from early 2026-27 through new government statistics.
They will track how long people wait, on average, in each area for their council to respond to a request for support, as well as the average duration between a request and the provision of a service.
The figures will be drawn from client level data, the system through which all 153 English councils submit quarterly data, and will be classified as "experimental statistics", meaning they are being tested.
The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) announced the move as part of a policy paper setting out its adult social care priorities for councils in 2026-27.
Reduction in numbers waiting for care
The number of people waiting for assessments, care, direct payments or reviews grew significantly in 2021-22, according to Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) surveys, hitting a high of approximately 542,000 in April 2022.
Numbers subsequently declined to an estimated 372,000 in March 2025, with about half of this group waiting for an assessment under the Care Act 2014, said ADASS.
The association also found that the number of people waiting at least six months for an assessment had declined from about 85,000 in August 2023 to 56,000 in March 2025.
Despite the reductions, cutting adult social care waiting times has remained a key policy objective for the DHSC, and the issue has been scrutinised at a local level by the Care Quality Commission in its assessments of councils over the past two years.
Three key priorities for adult social care
In its policy paper, the DHSC set out three overarching priority outcomes for adult social care:
- People who draw on care and support, and their carers, experience high-quality adult social care provided by a skilled workforce.
- People who draw on care and support are supported to promote their independence, where possible, and have choice and control over their support.
- People who draw on care and support experience joined-up health and social care services at a neighbourhood level.
Under each priority, it has set out a series of expectations for councils.
Providing high-quality care
In relation to providing high-quality care, these included monitoring waiting times, to improve access to care and promote timely delivery of services to people with complex needs.
The DHSC said that councils should also:
- Set fee rates at a sustainable level, to enable providers to recruit skilled staff and boost workforce capacity.
- Work with providers to embed the care workforce pathway, which sets out a national career structure for adult social care.
- Publish and maintain up-to-date commissioning strategies, focused on outcomes and the delivery of person-centred care and based on relevant evidence.
- Work with partners to embed a multi-agency safeguarding approach, designed to keep people safe in all parts of the care and support system.
Promoting independence, choice and control
On improving independence, choice and control, the DHSC said councils should:
- Co-produce care and support plans with people and their families, to increase choice and control, and provide greater access to direct payments where appropriate.
- Work with partners to deliver preventive services that avoid the need for care and, where care and support is needed, consider the best use of care technology and falls prevention services, to prevent longer-term needs and unplanned hospital admissions.
- Work with housing partners to ensure that people with care and support needs have appropriate and safe housing options, considering the best use of home adaptations and supported housing.
- Increase support for unpaid carers to help them maintain their own wellbeing, and co-ordinate and sustain care for their loved ones, ensuring they are actively involved in care planning.
- Co-ordinate early transition planning for young people from the age of 14 onwards, where they are likely to have eligible care and support needs upon reaching adulthood.
Integrating health and social care
Regarding health and social care integration, the department called on councils to co-develop neighbourhood health plans with the NHS and other relevant partners, including agreeing use of the Better Care Fund (BCF) for this purpose.
It added that authorities should develop multidisciplinary teams for people with more complex health and care needs, with personalised care planning, integrated care records and safe and appropriate delegation of healthcare activities to care professionals.
They should also agree integrated arrangements with the NHS for people with short-term rehabilitation, reablement and recovery needs, to help them regain independence, support timely and effective hospital discharge and prevent future admissions.
Changes to adult social care funding
As part of wider reforms to local government finance, the government is merging existing grants for funding adult social care into councils' general revenue support grant, from 2026-27. Grants to be merged include the social care grant and the market sustainability and improvement fund.
The DHSC said this would give authorities "greater discretion over how to use funding to respond to local needs, and removing the need to track spend against separate grants".
At the same time, the department plans to publish, in early 2026, "notional allocations" to provide authorities with a "reference point" to help them decide how much to spend on the service.
Notional adult social care allocations
In a document setting out its methodology for calculating allocations, the DHSC said these would be based on each council's existing spend on adult social care, adjusted for projected increases in authorities' "core spending power" (CSP) each year, up to 2028-29.
CSP is the total amount of funding made available to councils each year, based on government grants and the anticipated yield from authorities increasing council tax by the maximum permissible amount (typically 5% per year).
The government has calculated a share of CSP applicable to adult social care and used this to calculate councils' notional allocations.
The DHSC stressed that notional allocations would be a guide, not a ringfence for adult social care spending, and said it appreciated that expenditure locally was influenced by a range of factors, which may lead to deviation from its published estimates.
