Website of the Department of Health

The role of local councils with social services responsibilities

Local councils with social services responsibilities, and in conjunction with their partners, are responsible for identifying the needs of their local population, and commissioning services to meet them. In order to do this, councils work through a number of partnerships and frameworks. The key responsibility for adult social services rests with the Director of Adult Social Services, which is a statutory post in local authorities with social services responsibilities.

The delivery of adult social care services

Adult social care is delivered by over 25,000 providers, the majority of these providers are small and the ten largest providers only own a quarter of the private residential market between them.

• Public sector: there is still a small remnant of services that councils provide directly. This equates to 9 percent of care homes and 17 percent of domiciliary agencies. Councils also provide nearly 80 percent of adult placement schemes, although the carers themselves are not local authority employees.
• Private sector: the majority of adult social care providers are private sector. Two thirds of care homes and over 70 percent of domiciliary agencies are operated by the private sector. Many of these providers sell their services to councils as well as to private individuals.
• Voluntary sector: the voluntary sector is also a key service provider.

• List of useful links to improvement bodies websites