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The Fair Cost of Care and Market Sustainability Plan

Date updated: 3/01/2024
You can call Adult Social Care on 020 7332 1224 (Monday to Friday, 9am to 5pm) or 020 8356 2300 (outside normal working hours).

Adult Social Care is changing. This is called the Adult Social Care Reform. 

The government’s vision for social care reform sets out how people will experience care and support in the future, to ensure that:

  1. People have choice, control and support to live independent lives
  2. People can access outstanding and tailored quality of care and support
  3. People find Adult Social Care fair and accessible

The Fair Cost of Care

As part of the reform, local authorities are required to complete a fair cost of care exercise to arrive at a shared understanding with providers of the local cost of providing care. This is to ensure that people find Adult Social Care fair and accessible.

For the purposes of the exercise, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) consider ‘fair’ to mean the median actual operating costs (the amount in the middle of the lowest cost and the highest cost) for providing care in the local area (following completion of the exercise). ‘Fair’ also means what is sustainable for the local market. This is, on average, what local authorities are required to move towards paying providers.

The government recognise the complexity of local care markets, and the risk of oversimplification, but that it is necessary to find a way of standardising cost reporting; the median is designed to reflect that there are a range of local costs.

The report of City of London Corporation's Fair Cost of Care Exercise is published below. It follows the guidance of the Department of Health and Social Care and reflects the key principles of consistency, transparency, and a partnership approach. It also reflects the specific circumstances of the City of London Corporation. In the guidance from the government this report is known as “Annex B”. The Fair Cost of Care Exercise Report (Annex B) can be read in the PDF below.

If you are a provider and have any questions, or would like to discuss further, please email the Commissioning Team.

Our Fair Cost of Care Exercise (Annex B) PDF (200KB)
Date submitted: 10/01/23

The Market Sustainability Plan

Our Market Sustainability Plan PDF (200KB)
The Market Sustainability Plan sets out how we plan to move towards a fair cost of care (where this is not already paid) over the next few years.
Date submitted: 23/03/23

If you have found this page but were looking for support from Adult Social Care, please visit our Adult Social Care section or contact the Adult Social Care Team.