Research and analysis

Evaluation of the Accelerating Reform Fund: summary report

Published 11 December 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

The Accelerating Reform Fund (‘the fund’), announced in October 2023, is a social care innovation grant funding programme intended to:

• support local places to embed and scale new approaches to providing care
• improve services for unpaid carers

Ipsos UK was commissioned by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), in March 2024, to conduct an evaluation of the fund.

Note: ‘systems’ are defined in this report as groups of local authorities, which were organised into consortia based on integrated care system (ICS) footprints that submitted joint funding bids.

About the evaluation

The evaluation of the fund, and the Social Care Institute for Excellence’s (SCIE) associated support offer, was both a process and impact evaluation. Process elements of the evaluation focus on the national evaluation of the fund, and impact elements focus on impact measurement at a local system level.

The evaluation took a mixed-methods approach including:

• scoping research and evaluation co-design
• surveys and interviews with various stakeholder groups
• reviews of supplementary evidence and management information

The core evaluation questions were:

• has the fund supported local areas to create the conditions for the embedding and scaling of innovations in adult social care?
• has the fund and/or SCIE’s support offer helped local areas to overcome barriers and embed and scale innovation in adult social care?
• what are the impacts of embedding and scaling innovative approaches to delivering care and supporting unpaid carers?

About the fund

The Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) allocated £42.6 million over 2 years (financial years 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025) to support local authorities in England to reform and improve their adult social care services through innovation projects. The ARF aimed to support local systems to:

• effectively overcome barriers to adopting and scaling innovations
• support contributions to the evidence base for what interventions lead to better outcomes
• build on the evidence base for effective implementation of interventions in local places

DHSC also set 12 national priorities for delivery to guide the design of innovation projects. To learn more about these priorities, see the ‘About the fund’ section of the main report.

The ARF distributed funding through groups of local authorities in an ICS footprint (referred to as ‘consortia’) with a nominated lead authority. In total, 42 consortia and 148 local authorities (all in England) were allocated funding, with funding allocated based on the collective relative needs formula.

A support offer was commissioned by DHSC to provide delivery support to local systems and maximise engagement with the fund. This was provided by SCIE.

Implementation and delivery

End-of-grant reports were submitted by 39 of the 42 consortia that received ARF funding. When aggregated, these returns included 141 ARF projects. This is a larger number than the original 122 projects agreed at the start of the fund (across 42 consortia).

Analysis of the programme was based on projects’:

• delivery phase (how much progress they have made)
• category (what their main activities are)

Over 50% are now being meaningfully delivered, with another 11% showing emerging evidence of impact.

Projects related to setting up or implementing digital platforms (41 projects) and providing carers breaks and respite (35 projects) are most common. Projects related to hospital discharge (11 projects) and community-based care models (9 projects) are least common.

There was variation in projects’ progress, and this appears to relate to the type of activities being delivered. Community-based care models and Shared Lives projects have taken the longest time to reach full delivery, while those setting up digital platforms and supporting unpaid carers have been fastest. 

Projects that have set up or implemented digital platforms and technologies and projects establishing community-based care models are most likely to be able to demonstrate impacts at this stage.

Significant enablers to project delivery include:

• strong governance
• strong collaboration
• drawing upon wider expertise and peer learning
• sufficient staffing/resources
• co-production

Barriers and challenges include:

• funding instability (including a significant delay in committing funds related to the timing of the 2024 General Election) and sufficiency of resources
• procurement
• data governance
• risk aversion
• a lack of collaboration
• low service engagement or uptake

The support offer

The ARF’s funding model was seen by most systems as fostering collaboration between local authorities, leading to joint projects and shared learning. The 12 national priorities helped provide strategic direction and a focus on unpaid carers.

Sometimes, system-wide collaboration was challenging, and the impact of the funding model was therefore influenced by pre-existing relationships.

SCIE’s support offer included:

• workshops
• communities of practice (CoPs)
• one-to-one targeted support
• broad-ranging communications

The topics covered included:

• co-production
• compliance with the Care Act 2014
• hospital discharge
• digital self-service

The support offer received particularly strong engagement during the expression of interest phase. The targeted support and CoPs were generally well received, as they facilitated peer learning and provided valuable expertise. One-to-one support led to tangible progress in several systems.

However, the limited availability of reporting about what projects were taking place, where and their delivery progress meant targeting support in the right places was challenging. The timing of the support offer in relation to slower-than-anticipated project delivery meant some systems were not ready for support when it was offered. Some workshop attendees felt they were not sufficiently tailored to system needs, although the varying level of need and maturity would have made this difficult.

SCIE has summarised emerging learning that it has collected through delivering the support offer in its Embracing change: scaling innovation in social care in practice report.

Outcomes and impact

Around 1 in 10 (11%) projects are now evidencing short-term outcomes, based on analysis of end-of-grant reports, with many more reporting that they have systems in place to measure changes in the future.

The most commonly observed outcomes for individual projects so far include:

• increased carer identification and support
• improved access to information and services
• enhanced digital support
• better assessment and discharge processes
• the development of community-based care models

Projects related to technology or digital platforms and identification and assessments for carers, which have overcome procurement and other barriers and entered the delivery phase, appear to have had the biggest effects.

However, projects focused on more complex delivery that required greater collaboration across local systems (including with the NHS and voluntary, community and social enterprises), such as hospital discharge or setting up new community-based care models, may prove to have greater impact in time.

Unintended consequences exhibited in some ARF projects include the creation of a ‘two-tier’ support offer dependent on:

• digital literacy
• the generation of additional demand
• the identification of additional unmet need

Evidence of projects managing to scale or embed their innovations is mixed at this stage and depends on project progression and local contexts. Successful scaling and embedding often depends on factors such as the development of sustainable business models based on:

• strong evidence of what works
• integration with existing services
• securing alternative funding within individual local authorities

Conclusions

Some of the primary conclusions from the evaluation are as follows.

Outcomes and impact

The programme has shown some impact on overcoming barriers to innovation, and built the evidence base around implementing and producing better outcomes.

The evidence base around outcomes is only just emerging and remains incomplete. This is because many projects have, in practice, taken longer to implement than was anticipated, including as a result of delays in funding distribution.

Innovative approaches are hard to implement in adult social care. They take time to set up, and even longer to understand the effects.

Design of the fund

The fund was well designed for its purpose (an ICS footprint-based funding model that is non-ringfenced and in line with national priorities), and has fostered an environment of both collaboration and innovative practice.

Design of the support offer

The support offer enabled systems that fully engaged with it to deliver innovation, but was limited by slower-than-anticipated project delivery.

It improved its broader relevance to systems and impact upon their progress over time, as it became more focused on peer learning and one-to-one support.

Future support offers of this nature should continue to focus on these elements, which most systems feel are more valuable.

Most effective projects by category group

Projects focusing on technology or digital platforms and identification and assessments for carers have demonstrated the most significant outcomes to date. This is due to the extent to which they can be implemented and adopted quickly (once any procurement challenges have been overcome).

Projects involving digital platforms are most geared towards scaling, at this stage, due to the inherent potential of digital tools to reach wider audiences and integrate into mainstream services.

Projects focused on carer identification, assessments and hospital discharge prioritise embedding into existing systems, with scaling dependent on demonstrated success.

Embedding innovation

The fund has enabled systems to focus more on longer-term innovation and addressing systematic barriers to innovation, potentially facilitating further innovation beyond what was in the ARF projects themselves.

Recommendations

Recommendations for DHSC

It is recommended that DHSC:

• considers how to further support the scaling and embedding of successful ARF projects and sustains innovation in adult social care more broadly. Support could allow successful projects to scale and further develop their impact
• enhances the availability and sharing of best practice within social care innovation, and provides ongoing support to systems through tailored guidance, peer learning and knowledge exchange
• adopts this funding model for programmes of a similar nature. The combination of flexibility with clear guidance and priorities has aided systems in devising projects
• requires outcomes measuring and sustainability plans as a condition for receiving funding under any future programmes, and supports systems in:
  • developing business cases
  • exploring diverse funding models
  • integrating innovations into mainstream services
• considers adopting a narrower, more targeted approach to funding local areas through national programmes of this nature, and focuses future social care innovation funding on scaling emerging good practices, such as a national approach to digital support for unpaid carers
• improves the guidance, information and communication available around social care innovation and DHSC’s strategy for spreading best practice
• introduces more standards and guidelines around the adoption of digital tools, including providing clear guidance and support on data protection and information governance, particularly for artificial intelligence-driven innovations

Recommendations for systems

It is recommended that systems:

• streamline procurement and data governance processes, including streamlining procurement for digital tools and addressing data sharing issues to enable quicker technology implementation. This will facilitate faster access to and more efficient use of technology in care settings
• address the potential for a ‘digital divide’. Ensure equitable access to digital tools by addressing digital literacy gaps and infrastructure limitations. Strategies should focus on providing resources and support to bridge the digital divide
• strengthen co-production processes by supporting local authorities (through peer learning or national guidance) to develop effective co-production methods, focusing on engagement with people with care and support needs and their carers. Resources should address common challenges in engaging these core stakeholders
• improve evaluation capacity, with a focus on attribution and longer-term impacts. Integrate evaluation principles and frameworks into change management processes before projects begin

See the ‘Conclusions and implications’ section of the main report for more detailed recommendations.