Guidance

Adult social care data collection: September 2025 notice

Published 30 September 2025

Applies to England

About the September 2025 notice

Each September, a notice (formerly a letter) is published for the 153 councils with adult social services responsibilities (CASSRs) across England. This notice provides information on the mandated national adult social care data returns that CASSRs are required to complete. For the first time, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) will issue the guidance instead of NHS England. This follows the transfer of the responsibilities for the management of the following data collections to DHSC:

• Adult social care finance return, England (ASC-FR)
• Deferred payment agreements, England (DPA)
• Deprivation of liberty safeguards, England (DoLS)
• Guardianship under the Mental Health Act 1983
• Personal social services adult social care survey, England (ASCS)
• Personal social services survey of adult carers in England (SACE)
• Registered blind and partially sighted collection
• Safeguarding adults, England (SAC)

This notice provides information and deadlines for the 2025 to 2026 mandated adult social care data. This will still be submitted to NHS England in 2026 through the Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS) but will now be published by DHSC. For the 2025 to 2026 mandated adult social care collections there are no changes to be announced (see ‘Upcoming changes to collections’). The important dates for the 2025 to 2026 mandated adult social care collections are outlined in table 2.

The adult social care Data and Outcomes Board fully supports the completion of these mandated data returns. The Data and Outcomes Board includes representatives from DHSC, NHS England, the Care Quality Commission (CQC), the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) and the Local Government Association (LGA). The Data and Outcomes Board is the official sub-board of the Data Alliance Partnership Board, which oversees the assurance and approval of information standards, data collections and data extractions across health and adult social care. All mandated data requirements are included in the:

• Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) Single Data List
• Secretary of State Directions for Adult Social Care Collections
• associated data provision notice

We will name the CASSRs that do not meet the mandated requirements for each data collection in the reports published for each data collection. We publish this information to be transparent about the completeness and quality of the data. This helps data users understand any limitations. We will also include these CASSRs in briefing submissions to DHSC ministers, and we will notify the relevant director of adult social services.

You should read the additional information section at the end of this notice. These items are not part of the mandated collections listed above, but they include updates on important developments, such as CQC assessments and the Local Government Outcomes Framework (LGOF).

Please make sure this notice is shared with all relevant staff.

Sector support

Important organisations across the adult social care sector - including DHSC, CQC, ADASS and LGA - are grateful for your continued co-operation in submitting timely, high-quality data. This information helps to: 

• improve the quality and outcomes of care for our service users and their carers
• demonstrate transparency
• enable benchmarking
• inform government policy decisions

We welcome suggestions on how we can better support your work in the provision of these mandated collections.

Publication of 2024 to 2025 collections      

Details of the publication dates for the 2024 to 2025 reports are in table 1 below. The data for these collections has already been collected.

Table 1: publication dates for the 2024 to 2025 collections

Publication name	Publication date
Adult social care activity report, England, 2024 to 2025	23 October 2025
Adult social care finance report, England, 2024 to 2025	23 October 2025
Personal social services adult social care survey, England: 2024 to 2025	30 October 2025
Safeguarding adults collection, England, 2024 to 2025	November 2025
Measures from the adult social care outcomes framework, England, 2024 to 2025	December 2025 or January 2026
Deferred payment agreements, England, 2024 to 2025	January 2026
Deprivation of liberty safeguards, England, 2024 to 2025	March 2026

Finalised publication dates will be announced at least 28 days in advance on the GOV.UK central statistics release calendar.

We will be moving all the guidance and publications for the collections transferred from NHS England to a GOV.UK domain starting from August 2025. This change reflects that DHSC is now responsible for the validation, analysis and production of these data collections. Data published by NHS England from previous years is available on the Adult social care data hub.

We will also be considering the alignment of our existing ‘Monthly statistics for adult social care (England)’ publication with the publications listed above.

2025 to 2026 collections (to be submitted in 2026) 

Upcoming changes to collections 

This notice announces reporting changes to the adult social care collections. For the 2025 to 2026 collections there are no changes to be made. 

Submission dates 

You must submit a complete and fully validated return by the mandated submission deadline (see table 2).

Submission by the mandated submission deadline is important for the quality and completeness of data returns. Where necessary, we can provide additional support to address any issues and improve data quality before the mandated submission deadline. We will provide validation reports for each submission before the mandated deadline.

The refresh submission period after the mandated deadline provides you with the opportunity to address any data quality issues that we identify with the initial mandated submission. 

We will not accept further updates beyond the refresh submission deadline.

You should contact us as soon as possible if you are unable to provide a completed submission by the mandated deadline. We will then support you with your submission. We will publish information on the support we have provided in the data quality report for the data collection. 

Table 2: important collection dates for 2025 to 2026 data   

Collection name	Collection open date	Mandated submission deadline	Validation and data quality reports available	Refresh submission deadline	Provisional publication date
Survey of adult carers in England	15 Jan 2026	26 Feb 2026	12 Mar 2026	2 Apr 2026	Jun 2026
Safeguarding adults collection	1 Apr 2026	3 Jun 2026	17 Jun 2026	1 Jul 2026	Sep 2026
Deprivation of liberty safeguards	1 Apr 2026	13 May 2026	27 May 2026	17 Jun 2026	Aug 2026
Adult social care survey	1 Apr 2026	6 May 2026	20 May 2026	10 Jun 2026	Oct 2026
Guardianship	1 Apr 2026	13 May 2026	27 May 2026	10 Jun 2026	Oct 2026
Adult social care finance return	20 May 2026	1 Jul 2026	15 Jul 2026	12 Aug 2026	Oct 2026
Deferred payment agreements	20 May 2026	1 Jul 2026	15 Jul 2026	12 Aug 2026	Nov 2026
Registered blind and partially sighted collection (provisional)	20 May 2026	1 Jul 2026	15 Jul 2026	12 Aug 2026	Feb 2027
Adult social care workforce data set	7 Sep 2026	9 Oct 2026	Not applicable	Not applicable	Feb 2027

The adult social care workforce data set (ASC-WDS) is submitted to and published by Skills for Care.

The adult social care outcomes framework (ASCOF) publication (which combines data from several sources) has a provisional publication date of December 2026. 

Collection open date 

The collection open date is when we will open the submission window. You must submit all the collections for 2026 through NHS England’s SDCS. We will send further information and guidance to the named contact for each collection before the window opens. See the SDCS website for details of how to register for the service. If your named contact has changed, contact ssd.nationalservicedesk@nhs.net.  

You can begin submitting your data once the submission window opens. You can submit more than once during the window to improve the quality and completeness of your return. We recommend submitting early and, if needed, multiple times within the mandated submission window.

Mandated submission deadline

The mandated submission deadline is the final deadline for you to submit your fully completed and checked data to DHSC (through SDCS). The submission window will close at 5pm on the closing date.

We will not provide support outside of normal office hours. 

We will work with Partners in Care and Health to notify the director of adult social services where a CASSR has missed the submission deadline. If you miss the deadline, you will be:

• named within the data quality section of the associated official statistics publication
• named in briefing submissions to DHSC ministers

We will also be unable to provide additional support to improve the quality and completeness of your submission. 

CASSRs that received additional support after submitting their data returns early have provided positive feedback on this process.

Validation reports and data quality support available 

After we have closed the submission window, you will receive a validation report to help improve the quality and completeness of your data. We will aim to provide this within 5 working days of submission. 

We will also provide support throughout the submission window to improve the quality and completeness of your data.

Refresh submission window deadline 

After the mandated submission deadline, we will reopen the submission window for a short period of time to allow resubmissions through SDCS, if needed. This is called the refresh submission window. The refresh submission window will close at 5pm on the closing date.

Once we have closed the refresh submission window, you will have no further opportunities to resubmit. Note that:

• the mandated deadline for all data submissions is the date provided in the mandated submission deadline column for each collection
• the refresh submission window deadline is an opportunity for you to resubmit should this be required.

If you miss the mandated deadline but submit during the refresh submission window you will still be named as failing to meet the mandated deadline. 

2026 to 2027 data (to be submitted in 2027) 

There are currently no confirmed recording or reporting changes to the data items for the mandated 2026 to 2027 data collections. 

We may still require reporting changes for the current suite of data collections in 2026 to 2027. We will approve any changes with the relevant governance bodies and we will advise you of these changes in next year’s September notice and associated data provision notice.

Adult social care client level data

We have received the second full year of quarterly submissions for the adult social care client level data (CLD) collection. From April 2024, CLD replaced short and long-term support (SALT) data collection as the data source on activity in the annual Activity and Finance Report, and for 6 measures in the ASCOF publication. 

As well as the NHS England client level data product page, information on the adult social care CLD collection is available on a dedicated CLD website hosted by NHS Arden and GEM (AGEM) Commissioning Support Unit. See the ‘ASC Activity Statistics Methodology’ document in the ‘Using the data’ section for details of how CLD has been aggregated to recreate SALT data.

All the resources needed for the collection can be found on the AGEM site, including the latest:

• specification
• guidance
• onboarding instructions
• support materials 

See table 3 below for details of the important collection dates for the upcoming quarterly submissions for CLD.

Table 3: important collection dates for CLD covered by the September 2025 notice

Submission quarter	Start of reporting period	End of reporting period	Submission month
Quarter 2, 2025 to 2026	1 Oct 2024	30 Sep 2025	Oct 2025
Quarter 3, 2025 to 2026	1 Jan 2025	31 Dec 2025	Jan 2026
Quarter 4, 2025 to 2026	1 Apr 2025	31 Mar 2026	Apr 2026
Quarter 1, 2026 to 2027	1 Jul 2025	30 Jun 2026	Jul 2026

Changes to the specification and guidance

We agreed minor changes to the specification and guidance to improve consistency of reporting across local authorities. Important changes include improving how event outcomes, assessments and short-term support reviews are captured. A new requirement to submit unpaid carer assessments as separate records - even when done jointly with the person they care for - aims to improve reporting of support for unpaid carers.

DHSC consulted with local authorities through the CLD reference group, and the updated (release 2) specification was approved by the Data and Outcomes Board in January 2025 and published on the AGEM site in February 2025. These changes will become mandatory from the October 2025 submission window for events ending on or after 1 July 2025 and ongoing events.  

If you require any guidance on submitting CLD or accessing the data, email agem.adultsocialcare@nhs.net

The publication of unpaid carers data from CLD

To avoid misinterpretation of the data, this year’s official statistics publications will not include data from CLD on local authority support for unpaid carers. This will impact the following publications:

• Adult social care activity report, England (measure LTS003)
• ASCOF (measure 3D, parts 1b and 2b)

This is because many councils use external organisations to provide this support and do not currently have agreements and systems in place to share individual-level data through CLD.

Although many councils have already done work to improve data on unpaid carers, the national number of unpaid carers described in CLD for 2024 to 2025 was significantly lower than the figure reported through SALT the previous year. The gap is especially large for some types of support such as universal services.

DHSC will investigate these problems further and work with councils over the coming year, aiming to publish more complete data when possible.

Client level data and the adult social care outcomes framework

In December 2024, we updated the ASCOF handbook of definitions, which sets out the technical detail of each of the ASCOF measures. Our update to the handbook of definitions included detailed information on 6 ASCOF measures, which were previously derived from SALT and have been updated to use CLD. The 2025 ASCOF publication will use CLD for the first time to calculate these 6 measures. The measures derived from CLD will be designated ‘official statistics in development’ (previously known as ‘experimental statistics’), to reflect that this is new data. For details on how the measures have been derived from CLD, see the ‘ASC Activity Statistics Methodology’ document in the ‘Using the data’ section of the dedicated CLD website.

We will continue to engage with stakeholders as part of any further reform of ASCOF. We intend for future reform to fully use new data sources and to make better use of existing data sources, alongside updates to the Personal social services adult social care survey, England and the Personal social services survey of adult carers in England.

Additional information 

We have included additional information for further clarity, context and transparency on the data collections below. 

Registered blind and partially sighted people

Registered blind and partially sighted people is a triennial publication containing detailed statistics on adults and children registered with CASSRs in England as being blind or partially sighted.

Previously data has been collected through the SSDA902 return, which was included as an additional sheet in the SALT return every 3 years. Due to the cessation of the SALT collection, we will collect data covering 2025 to 2026 through an alternative route. You will be notified as soon as this has been finalised, but the data items to be collected will be the same as in previous years. As a result, the important collection dates in table 2 for this collection are currently provisional.

CQC local authority assessments 

CQC commenced formal local authority assessments in December 2023, and its 2-year baselining period is due to be completed in April 2026 (see An introduction to our assessments of local authorities on the CQC website). CQC continues to include a range of metrics from the mandated collections set out in this notice as evidence, in conjunction with other evidence sources. You can read the assessment framework and its evidence requirements on the CQC website.

Work is underway to design the reassessment approach and details of this will be communicated in due course.

Data and Outcomes Board assurance 

Data collections in the Single Data List are subject to regular reviews of the data burden they place on CASSRs to ensure that these are proportionate and justifiable. The following data collections are now due for review:

• Adult social care survey, England
• Survey of adult carers in England
• Adult social care finance return
• Safeguarding adults collection

We are working with MHCLG, which is responsible for Single Data List oversight and management, to develop a review plan for these collections. 

Local Government Outcomes Framework

MHCLG will be publishing a new LGOF in winter 2025. The LGOF is a new approach to outcome-based accountability for councils in England and is designed to empower councils as place leaders. MHCLG closed its call for feedback on LGOF in September 2025.

The LGOF currently includes 15 priority outcomes, which represent the government’s top priorities for councils. The priority outcomes are based on:

• government missions in the Plan for Change
• important areas of local spending

Each priority outcome is underpinned by metrics that are intended to track progress towards the outcome.

We have included 3 priority adult social care outcomes in the LGOF. These are:

• quality: care users and carers experience high quality adult social care that is provided by a skilled workforce
• independence: care users are supported to stay independent in their homes where possible, and have choice and control over their support
• neighbourhood health and integration: care users are supported by joined up health and social care services at a neighbourhood level

Our 3 priority outcomes are underpinned by existing metrics taken from the ASCOF and the monthly statistics for adult social care (England).

Adult social care workforce data set

Skills for Care is commissioned to collect data and produce insights about the staff employed (directly and indirectly) by CASSRs in England. Topics covered include:

• the size of the workforce
• employment overview
• recruitment and retention
• demographics
• pay information

Data is collected through a submission to the ASC-WDS (login required). 

See the Skills for Care website for guidance to help complete the return.

Digitising social care 

The digitising social care programme is funded by DHSC and delivered by a joint NHS England and DHSC team. We support the digital transformation and adoption of digital technology in the adult social care sector, laying the foundations to improve the flow of data between health and care to deliver safer, more efficient, personalised care. One of our priority areas of focus has been to encourage CQC-registered adult social care providers in England to continue to adopt digital approaches to care planning by implementing a digital social care record (DSCR). In January 2025, the government made commitments regarding joining up data and setting standards for technology within the adult social care sector, which the digitising social care programme is delivering.

In September 2025 we commissioned Softcat Plc to start work on the discovery phase of a Social Care Interoperability Platform, which will be a digital ‘bridge’ for adult social care, allowing data sharing between adult social care and NHS IT infrastructure. The initial focus will be on sharing of provider data.

You can find more information about the digitising social care programme on the Digitising social care website and in the press release for the public commitments: New reforms and independent commission to transform social care.

You can also email us: england.adultsocialcare@nhs.net