Website of the Department of Health

Personal social services statistics: finance

This archive contains Personal Social Services current expenditure (gross expenditure; net expenditure; income from sales, fees and charges) data reported by councils for each year from 1994-95. Information throughout refers to England.

Data on Personal Social Services current expenditure are collated on a return, PSS EX1, made annually to the Department by councils. The PSS EX1 attributes management and support costs to the actual categories of expenditure. Where councils are unable to attribute these costs themselves, they are attributed on a pro rata basis. A copy of the return and associated guidance notes, including a copy of the CIPFA Service Expenditure for Social Services which provides definitions of the expenditure categories is available on the page on PSS EX1 in the Statistical Collection section.

Prior to 2000-2001 expenditure data was collated on form RO3 which was submitted to the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM). This RO3 return was itself extensively revised in 1994-95 to accord with CIPFA accounting guidelines in "Accounting for Social Services" which were introduced in England and Wales in April 1993 (April 1994 in Scotland). It was again revised in 1998-99 following the recommendations of an ODPM efficiency scrutiny to reduce the burden on councils. Following the introduction of the PSS EX1, the form RO3 was reduced to a basic summary level. RO3 provided separate lines for each client group on which management and support costs could be recorded as an alternative to attributing them to actual categories of expenditure.

The client groups used are those in the CIPFA guidance and will generally reflect the primary cause for placement/service provided. The term "children" is generally understood as including all children, including those with disabilities; and "older people" will generally include all or most people aged 65 or over.

 Information on current expenditure for earlier years appears in "Personal Social Services: A Historical Profile of Reported Current and Capital Expenditure 1983-84 to 1993-94 England", a limited number of copies of which are available from the Department of Health. These data are in a different format from that given here for 1994-95 onwards.

Note that this information is now collected and published by the Information Centre for health and social care (IC). All data published from October 2005 onwards will be published on the IC website.

• Statistics on adult social care, on the Information Centre website (opens new window)
• Personal social services expenditure and unit costs: England: 2004-2005 (opens new window)
• Personal Social Services expenditure and unit costs: England: 2003-2004