Official Statistics

Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025

Updated 27 October 2025

Applies to England

Introduction

This report presents data on adult social care finances in England for the period 1 April 2024 to 31 March 2025. All references to years relate to those running 1 April to 31 March. It draws on data from the adult social care finance return (ASC-FR) submitted by each local authority. It provides information on how local authorities funded adult social care, how much they spent and where the money came from. Note, some figures in this report may not sum due to rounding.

This finance report was previously published as the Adult social care activity and finance report by NHS England. See the Adult social care activity report, England: 2024 to 2025 published by the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC).

How the data can be used

This report may interest members of the public, policy officials and other stakeholders. It can be used to compare local and national data and to monitor the quality and effectiveness of services.

You can:

• use this report to consider similarities and differences in the trends shown in the data. For example, if expenditure has increased or decreased for a type of social care, check the related activity trends in the activity report to understand the full picture
• use this data to increase your understanding of how local authorities commission and deliver social care
• contact us if you have any questions about the data published - see the ‘Contact’ section below
• use the data quality outputs to help you understand variation and change at local level. Some changes may reflect operational practice, methodological changes, or how a local authority responded to the COVID-19 pandemic, rather than a change in demand

You cannot:

• divide expenditure by activity data to work out a cost per person. For example, the client level data (CLD) used in the activity return does not distinguish between someone receiving one week of care and someone receiving long-term support for a full year
• use this data to judge performance as good or bad
• directly compare long-term activity data published alongside this publication with the long-term finance data published here. The 2 reports define long-term care differently. For example, activity data includes clients receiving long-term care with a primary support reason (PSR) of social support. In finance data, this PSR is not included in long-term expenditure but recorded as a combined short-term and long-term spend. Because of these definitional differences, you must not compare the 2 data sets directly.

Note on the impacts of COVID-19

There were no specific funding measures in place to address the residual impact of the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic in financial years 2023 to 2024 or 2024 to 2025. However, these were in place in previous years (2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022) so this should be borne in mind when looking at longer term trends.

Main points

The main points outlined in this report are that:

• gross current expenditure (GCE) on adult social care by local authorities was £29.4 billion in 2024 to 2025. This was £2.3 billion (9%) higher than the previous year in cash terms
• over three-quarters (80% or £23.6 billion) of total GCE was spent on long-term support in 2024 to 2025. This was £2.2 billion (10%) higher than in 2023 to 2024
• income from client contributions increased by 14% (£0.6 billion) between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. It accounted for the highest share of local authority income, overtaking external income from the NHS (which increased by 4%). Overall income increased by 8% to £9.7 billion
• the average cost of a week of residential or nursing care increased by 7% (£77.15) to £1,185.55. The average cost of an hour of externally-provided home care was £23.56, an increase of 7% (£1.53) on last year

1. Finance overview

The flowchart below maps out income and expenditure across adult social care, for 2024 to 2025. Please note, the flowchart format used is not accessible and so is supported by alternative text describing the contents.

Figure 1: overview of total local authority expenditure and income on adult social care, 2024 to 2025

Most of this data can be found in tables 3 and 7 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page. Note, the figure for planned Better Care Fund (BCF) spend has been provided directly by NHS England and is not contained within this publication.

Figure 1 description:

Figure 1 shows a flow chart that provides an overview of all local authority expenditure and income on adult social care. The structure of the flow chart is as follows. The top row includes boxes:

• (A) expenditure on own provision at £6,707 million
• (B) expenditure on provision by others at £27,666 million
• (C) expenditure on grants to voluntary organisations at £175 million

These feed directly into box D below, which describes total expenditure as: ‘A plus B, plus C’ - and totals £34,548 million.

The boxes on the third row contain income received to fund adult social care. There are 4 boxes consisting of:

• (E) income from joint arrangement at £144 million
• (F) income from the NHS at £4,392 million
• (G) income from client contributions at £4,676 million
• (H) income from other arrangements £456 million

These are then subtracted from (D) total expenditure to provide the box on the fourth line: (I) net total expenditure at £24,880 million. This is described as (D) minus (E plus F, plus G, plus H).

The row below shows (J) capital charges, at £163 million. This is then subtracted from (D) to produce the main, central box on the row below. This is box (L) net current expenditure (NCE), also known as local authority spend. This totals £24,717 million.

To the left and right of this box are other measures often used to measure expenditure, as follows.

On the left is (L) gross current public expenditure at £29,109 million. This is calculated by adding (F) income from the NHS, (which sits directly above (L) but on the third row) to (K) NCE.

On the right is (M) gross current expenditure at £29,393 million. This is calculated by adding (G) income from client contributions (which sits directly above (M) but on the third row) to (K) NCE.

The final row features just 2 boxes and takes into account NHS England spend on BCF. On the left of the row is (N), planned BCF expenditure, at £3,064 million. This is added to (K) NCE to produce the box in the middle: (O) net estimate of public spend on social care. This equals £27,781 million.

2. Expenditure

The ODS files that accompany this report provide a selection of income and expenditure figures provided by local authorities as part of the ASC-FR collection. The CSV file provides the full breakdown of all data provided.

Total expenditure

In 2024 to 2025, total expenditure on adult social care totalled £34.5 billion. This is an 8% increase on the previous financial year and continues the upward trend for the sector. Local authorities increased expenditure across all categories. The greatest percentage increase was in GCE on long-term care. Long-term care accounts for substantially more spend than short-term care and other care (which includes areas such as commissioning and service delivery).

Table 1: ASC-FR reporting measures with year-on-year change, between 2019 and 2020, and 2024 and 2025 (£ billion)

Finance type	Care type	2019 to 2020	2020 to 2021	2021 to 2022	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025	% change between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025
Expenditure	Total	23.3	26.0	26.9	28.4	32.0	34.5	8%
GCE	Total	19.7	21.2	22.0	23.7	27.1	29.4	9%
GCE	Long-term care	15.4	15.6	16.6	18.4	21.4	23.6	10%
GCE	Total - short-term care	0.6	0.7	0.8	0.9	1.0	1.1	7%
GCE	Short-term care - ST-Max	0.3	0.4	0.4	0.5	0.5	0.6	9%
GCE	Short-term care - other	0.3	0.3	0.4	0.5	0.4	0.5	5%
GCE	Other	3.7	4.9	4.6	4.3	4.7	4.8	2%
NCE	Total	16.5	18.3	18.8	20.2	23.0	24.7	8%

This data can be found in tables 3, 14 and 29 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Gross current expenditure

GCE is the amount local authorities spend after subtracting capital charges and income from all sources except client contributions. During the 2024 to 2025 financial year, GCE on adult social care was £29.4 billion. It is a leading measure of local government spending. Unless stated otherwise, figures in this report use GCE.

It is important to be aware of the parts that contribute to calculating GCE, as shown below for 2024 to 2025. Any year-on-year changes to GCE will be driven by increases or decreases in one or more of these areas.

The calculation is shown below.

Gross current expenditure (£29,393 million) equals total expenditure (£34,548 million) minus:

• £163 million capital charges
• £144 million from joint arrangements
• £4,392 million as income from the NHS
• £456 million from ‘other’ income

Table 2 shows total GCE, split between long-term care, short-term care and other, over the last 3 financial years. GCE in the adult social care sector has continued to rise across all care types. Long-term care saw the largest increase, rising by 10% from £21.4 billion to £23.6 billion.

Table 2: GCE by care type 2022 to 2023 to 2024 to 2025 (£ billion)

Care type	2022 to 2023	2023 to 2024	2024 to 2025	Percentage change between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025
Long-term care	18.4	21.4	23.6	10%
Short-term care	1.0	1.0	1.1	7%
Other	4.3	4.7	4.8	2%
Total	23.7	27.1	29.4	9%

This data can be found in table 14 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Figure 2 below provides the latest year’s GCE on adult social care, broken down by age band and primary support reason.

Main points on expenditure

The main points outlined in this report are that:

• physical support was the PSR receiving the highest expenditure for clients receiving long-term care aged 65 and over, and all clients receiving short-term care regardless of age group
• learning disability support was the PSR receiving the highest expenditure for clients receiving long-term care aged 18 to 64
• the largest expenditure in ‘other spending’ was on social care activities, totalling £2.356 million

Figure 2: overview of GCE on adult social care, 2024 to 2025

This data can be found in tables 19, 20 and 46 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Please note that the flow chart format used in figure 2 does not meet accessibility requirements. However, the figures are presented in table format in tables 6, 9 and 10 under the long-term care, short-term care and other expenditure chapters.

GCE - cash terms versus real terms

Comparing changes in spending over time can be misleading because like-for-like comparisons in ‘cash terms’ do not include the effects of inflation. Figure 3, shown below, uses gross domestic product (GDP) deflators to adjust for inflation up to and including the financial year 2024 to 2025 and provide the values in ‘real terms’.

See more information on the process of obtaining these adjusted figures in the section ‘Use of GDP deflator’.

Figure 3: GCE in cash and real terms, between 2008 to 2009 and 2024 to 2025

The values from figure 3 are presented in table 3 below.

Table 3: GCE on adult social care in cash and real terms, between 2008 to 2009 and 2024 to 2025 (£ billion)

Financial year	GCE in cash terms	GCE in real terms
2008 to 2009	16.1	24.0
2009 to 2010	16.8	24.7
2010 to 2011	17.0	24.6
2011 to 2012	17.2	24.5
2012 to 2013	17.2	23.9
2013 to 2014	17.2	23.6
2014 to 2015	17.0	23.0
2015 to 2016	17.0	22.8
2016 to 2017	17.5	23.0
2017 to 2018	17.9	23.2
2018 to 2019	18.7	23.7
2019 to 2020	19.7	24.3
2020 to 2021	21.2	24.9
2021 to 2022	22.0	25.9
2022 to 2023	23.7	26.1
2023 to 2024	27.1	28.2
2024 to 2025	29.4	29.4

The data for 2024 to 2025 can be found in table 4 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Net current expenditure

NCE is calculated by subtracting client contributions from GCE. This is also known as local authority spending.

NCE is useful for understanding how much of adult social care is funded solely from local authorities. This includes money raised locally such as council tax (including the adult social care precept) and business rates. This also includes money from central government, such as the improved Better Care Fund (iBCF) or the local government finance settlement. NCE does not include capital charges or external income. It is unaffected by variations in client contributions or income from the NHS, which are the 2 largest income sources.

Due to changing government policy, responsibility and funding for providing certain adult social care services often shifts between different public bodies, most commonly between the NHS and local authorities. This means that it is not always meaningful to compare expenditure on adult social care over time if based only on expenditure by social services departments.

To calculate overall public spending (OPS), planned spending on the minimum BCF, and direct spending with social care providers, is added to the figure for NCE. OPS for 2024 to 2025 is estimated at £27.8 billion, a 7% (£1.9 billion) cash terms or 3% (£0.9 billion) real terms increase from 2023 to 2024.

Table 4 below provides information about net public expenditure on adult social care services by social services departments and other organisations, and gives an estimate of OPS on adult social care services in England. Before using the table, see the section ‘Notes on table 4’ below, for some important explanations.

The sources of funding included are not exhaustive (for example, expenditure by local authorities from budgets other than social services, such as housing, are not included) and only include those for which expenditure can be readily quantified. The sources included are thought to cover those considered necessary to be able to provide a comparable time-series on public expenditure on adult social care. Data has not been adjusted for inflation.

Notes on table 4

NCE of social services departments

This includes supporting clients expenditure and expenditure on assessment, care management and other overheads. For full details on what is included in the ASC-FR collection see the guidance documents for the collection. These documents are currently hosted by NHS England but are due to move to DHSC by the end of the financial year 2025 to 2026. Should you have difficulty finding these documents due to the transition, please contact ascfr@dhsc.gov.uk.

Valuing people now

The valuing people now initiative aimed to give greater independence to young adults with learning disabilities. Responsibility for providing services to this cohort lay with the NHS before being transferred to local authorities in 2008 to 2009. Until 2011 to 2012, funding continued to be provided through the NHS and so was not included in the net expenditure by social services departments. From 2011 to 2012, funding for this initiative was allocated directly to local authorities and therefore is included in the net expenditure of social services departments. The actual value of the transfer is known for 2010 to 2011 only and has been assumed to be flat in real terms (adjusted using the GDP deflator as shown in the section ‘Use of GDP deflator’) to provide a figure for previous years.

NHS transfer to Local authorities

As per the Secretary of State directions 2014, these monies were transferred from the NHS to local authorities for the provision of social care services that also benefit health. As they are considered to be income, the sums are not included in the net expenditure reported by social services departments.

BCF

BCF was introduced in 2015 to 2016. This figure specifically relates to planned spend from the minimum contribution made by clinical commissioning groups (which were replaced by integrated care services in 2022) to the total BCF joint fund pool. This figure constitutes jointly agreed planned expenditure classified as ‘social care’ in BCF plans (all commissioner types and all provider types) and planned expenditure that was not classified as ‘social care’ but was commissioned from non-NHS providers (local authority, charity and/or voluntary sector and private sector - by all commissioner types).

Winter pressures transfer

As per commitments in 2012, these monies were transferred from the NHS to local authorities for the provision of social care services that also benefit health, specifically over the winter period. As they are considered to be income, the sums are not included in the net expenditure reported by social services departments.

Table 4: NCE on adult social care services in cash and real terms, by source of funding (£ billion)

Year	NCE of social services departments	Valuing People Now	NHS transfer to local authorities	Planned BCF social care spend	Winter pressures transfer	OPS cash terms	OPS real terms
2009 to 2010	14.5	1.3	NA	NA	NA	15.7	23.2
2010 to 2011	14.6	1.3	NA	NA	0.2	16.1	23.2
2011 to 2012	14.8	NA	0.7	NA	0.2	15.6	22.1
2012 to 2013	14.6	NA	0.6	NA	0.1	15.4	21.4
2013 to 2014	14.7	NA	0.9	NA	NA	15.5	21.2
2014 to 2015	14.4	NA	1.1	NA	NA	15.5	21.0
2015 to 2016	14.3	NA	NA	1.8	NA	16.1	21.7
2016 to 2017	14.8	NA	NA	2.0	NA	16.8	22.0
2017 to 2018	15.1	NA	NA	2.1	NA	17.1	22.1
2018 to 2019	15.8	NA	NA	2.1	NA	17.9	22.7
2019 to 2020	16.6	NA	NA	2.3	NA	18.8	23.3
2020 to 2021	18.3	NA	NA	2.4	NA	20.7	24.3
2021 to 2022	18.8	NA	NA	2.6	NA	21.4	25.2
2022 to 2023	20.2	NA	NA	2.7	NA	22.9	25.3
2023 to 2024	23.0	NA	NA	2.9	NA	25.9	26.9
2024 to 2025	24.7	NA	NA	3.1	NA	27.8	27.8

Note: ‘NA’ means not applicable.

The NCE data can be found in table 4 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - net current expenditure data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

For users interested in using this metric, a set of NCE data tables based on data collected in the ASC-FR, accompany this report.

NCE on adult social care is also collected by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG).

Totals should reconcile between the 2 collections (with a small number of exceptions).

3. Long-term care

Long-term care refers to ongoing support provided with the intention of maintaining quality of life for an individual. This support ranges from intensive services, such as nursing care, to lower-level assistance within the community. Examples include direct payments for regular home care visits. Long-term care is delivered according to assessed needs and continues for as long as the individual requires support.

Main points on long-term care

In the 2024 to 2025 financial year, 80% of total GCE (£23.56 billion) was spent on long-term care. This includes residential, nursing and community care.

This was an increase of £2.15 billion (10%) compared with 2023 to 2024.

As demonstrated in figure 4 below, spending on long-term care was split almost equally between age groups:

• spending of £11.5 billion (49%) on clients aged 18 to 64
• spending of £12.0 billion (51%) on clients aged 65 and over

Figure 4: GCE on long-term care by age band between 2017 to 2018 and 2024 to 2025

The values from figure 4 are shown in table 5 below:

Table 5: GCE on long-term care by age band between 2017 to 2018 and 2024 to 2025

Financial year	GCE on clients aged 18 to 64 (£ billion)	GCE on clients aged 65 and over (£ billion)
2017 to 2018	6.9	7.1
2018 to 2019	7.2	7.4
2019 to 2020	7.5	7.9
2020 to 2021	7.9	7.7
2021 to 2022	8.3	8.3
2022 to 2023	9.1	9.3
2023 to 2024	10.4	11.0
2024 to 2025	11.5	12.0

The data for 2024 to 2025 can be found in table 17 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page. Data from previous years can be found in table 17 of previous reports published by the NHS: Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report - NHS England Digital.

The table below offers an accessible format of the long-term care values included in the flowchart in figure 2. It breaks down expenditure by age group into primary support reasons, both in monetary terms and as a percentage of total GCE.

Table 6: GCE across long-term care, 2024 to 2025

Subcategory	Aged 18 to 64 expenditure (£million)	Aged 18 to 64, % of total GCE	Aged 65 and over expenditure (£million)	Aged 65 and over, % of total GCE
Total	£11,540	39%	£12,015	41%
Physical support	£2,097	7%	£7,784	26%
Sensory support	£83	0%	£112	0%
Support with memory and cognition	£172	1%	£2,192	7%
Learning disability support	£7,724	26%	£1,039	4%
Mental health support	£1,464	5%	£888	3%

This data can be found in table 45 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

In addition to splitting expenditure by primary support reason, we can also break down expenditure by care setting and age group. Across all age groups, community care was the largest category and made up 49% of GCE on long-term care. However, this is not equal across age groups:

• for those 18 to 64, the highest proportion of GCE on long-term care is spent on community care
• for those 65 and over, the highest proportion of GCE on long-term care is spent on residential care. Expenditure on nursing care is also substantially higher than in the 18 to 64 age band

Table 7: GCE across long-term care by support setting 2024 to 2025

	Community	Residential (£ million)	Nursing (£ million)	Supported accommodation (£ million)
18 to 64	£7,323	£2,931	£464	£822
65 and over	£4,289	£4,967	£2,581	£178

This data can be found in table 45 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Community care is broken down into 4 distinct categories: direct payments, home care, supported living and other. The distribution of GCE between these subcategories also changes substantially based on the age group.

Figure 5a shows GCE on long-term care for clients aged between 18 and 64, split by support setting.

Figure 5a: GCE on long-term care by setting, clients aged 18 to 64, 2024 to 2025

This data can be found in table 43 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

The main points from figure 5a are that:

• for people aged 18 to 64, local authorities spent more on long-term care in the community (63%) than on all other settings combined
• for people aged 18 to 64, the largest category of expenditure on long-term community care was supported living (46% of total community spending). Direct payments accounted for 24% of spending on community settings, home care accounted for 16% and other long-term care accounted for 13%
• spending on residential care accounted for 25% (£2.9 billion) of GCE on clients aged 18 to 64. Supported accommodation accounted for 7% (£822 million) and nursing care accounted for 4% (£464 million)

Figure 5b shows GCE on clients aged 65 and over, by support setting.

Figure 5b: GCE on long-term care by setting, clients aged 65 and over, 2024 to 2025

This data can be found in table 44 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

The main points from figure 5b are that:

• for people aged 65 and over, the highest category of spending was on residential care (£5.0 billion or 41%). £4.3 billion (36%) was spent on community care, £2.6 billion was spent on nursing care and £178 million (1%) was spent on supported accommodation
• of the spending on community settings for people aged 65 and over, 66% was spent on home care, 16% was spent on direct payments, 12% was spent on supported living and 6% was spent on other long-term care

Figure 6 below shows the breakdown of GCE across support settings for clients of all ages comparing 2024 to 2025 to the previous year, 2023 to 2024.

Figure 6: GCE on long-term support by support setting, 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025

This data can be found in table 45 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page. Data from 2023 to 2024 can be found in table 45 of the 2023 to 2024 report published by the NHS: Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report, England, 2023-24 - NHS England Digital.

The main points from figure 6 are that:

• expenditure across all support settings has increased with an average increase of 11%
• the largest percentage increase in expenditure was 13% (£0.1 billion), for supported accommodation
• in monetary terms, the largest increase was in community support (£1.1 billion)
• spending on nursing care increased by £0.2 billion and spending on residential care increased by £0.7 billion

4. Short-term care

Following a request for support and an assessment, clients may be provided with a period of short-term care.

Short-term care falls into 2 categories, which are:

• ST-Max: this includes all episodes of support provided that aim to be time limited, with the intention of maximising the independence of the individual and reducing and/or eliminating their need for ongoing support by the local authorities
• other short-term support: all other short-term services, for example, emergency support not otherwise included in short-term support to maximise independence

Main points on short-term care

The main findings outlined in this report are that:

• GCE on short-term care increased by 7% between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025
• spending on people aged 18 to 64 rose by 16%. Spending on people aged 65 and over increased by 5%
• local authorities spent more on short-term care for people aged 65 and over (76%) than for people aged 18 to 64 (24%). This follows a similar pattern as previous years

Figure 7: GCE on short-term care by age band, between 2017 to 2018 and 2024 to 2025

The values from figure 7 are shown in table 8 below.

Table 8: GCE on short-term care by age band between 2017 to 2018 and 2024 to 2025

Financial year	GCE on clients aged 18 to 64 (£ million)	GCE on clients aged 65 and over (£ million)
2017 to 2018	163	392
2018 to 2019	152	428
2019 to 2020	159	450
2020 to 2021	174	507
2021 to 2022	190	578
2022 to 2023	211	738
2023 to 2024	215	768
2024 to 2025	249	805

This data can be found in table 29 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page. Data from previous years can be found in table 29 of previous reports published by the NHS: Adult Social Care Activity and Finance Report - NHS England Digital

The table below offers an accessible format of the short-term care values included in the flow chart in figure 2. It breaks down expenditure by age group into primary support reasons.

Table 9: GCE on short-term care by primary support reason 2024 to 2025

Subcategory	Aged 18 to 64, expenditure (£ million)	Aged 18 to 64, % of total GCE	Aged 65 and over, expenditure (£ million)	Aged 65 and over, % of total GCE
Total	£249	1%	£805	3%
Physical support	£106	0%	£669	2%
Sensory support	£3	0%	£9	0%
Support with memory and cognition	£7	0%	£90	0%
Learning disability support	£96	0%	£11	0%
Mental health support	£38	0%	£26	0%

This data can be found in table 29 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Across all categories of short-term care, the largest share of expenditure is allocated to physical support, although the predominant primary support reason varies by age group and the purpose of the support provided.

ST-Max

Expenditure on ST-Max activities in 2024 to 2025 totalled £582 million, 55% of GCE on all short-term support, or 2% of total GCE. Of this:

• the majority (£482 million) was spent on clients aged 65 and over
• a total of 84% or £489 million was spent on physical support
• spending of £29 million (5%) was directed toward learning disability support, with 87% of this funding being spent on those aged 18 to 64

Other short-term support

Spending on other short-term care equalled £471 million or 45% of GCE on all short-term support. Of this:

• a total of 68% was spent on those aged 65 and over
• a total of 61% (£285 million) was spent on physical support, with the majority (£237 million) being allocated to clients aged 65 and over
• a total of £77 million (16%) was spent on learning disability support. Of this 91% was spent on those aged 18 to 64

5. Other expenditure

The remaining GCE comes from spending on other social care, totalling £4,784 million or 16% of total GCE.

The table below offers an accessible format of the ‘other spending’ values included in the flow chart in figure 2. It breaks down this expenditure into subdivisions.

Table 10: GCE on other social care 2024 to 2025

Subcategory	Expenditure (£ million)	% of total GCE
Total	£4,784	16%
Substance misuse support	£49	0%
Asylum seeker support	£83	0%
Support to carer	£203	1%
Support for social isolation or other	£153	1%
Assistive equipment and technology	£266	1%
Social care activities	£2,356	8%
Information and early intervention	£232	1%
Commissioning and service delivery	£1,442	5%

Support to carers

Local authorities report information relating to unpaid carers in the finance return which is then categorised as ‘support to carers’. Data on carers relates to unpaid carers of all ages who provide care on a regular basis for someone aged 18 or over. Support can include services or interventions undertaken to support an individual in their role of caring for another person.

Support to carers was £203 million in the financial year 2024 to 2025, an increase of 10% from £183 million in 2023 to 2024.

Figure 8 below shows the percentage changes in expenditure on other social care by primary support reason, compared to 2023 to 2024.

Figure 8: percentage changes in spending on other social care, by primary support reason between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025

The main points from figure 8 are that:

• the largest percentage increase was in substance misuse support, which increased by 11% (£5 million)
• spending on both asylum seeker support and information and early intervention decreased by 4% (£3 million) and 7% (£17 million) respectively
• spending on support to carers increased by 10%, support for social isolation increased by 9%, social care activities increased by 4% and assistive equipment and technology increased by 1%. Commissioning and service delivery spending decreased marginally (by less than 1%)

This data can be found in table 46 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

6. Income

The majority of adult social care is not funded by central government but through local authorities’ budgets - known as local authority spend (or NCE). This is made up of locally-raised revenues such as council tax and business rates, alongside grants from central government. In 2024 to 2025, local authority spend from these sources equalled 72% of total expenditure. Remaining expenditure is funded by a combination of external income sources including:

• income from the NHS (which differs from planned BCF expenditure)
• client contributions
• joint arrangements
• other income

This collection cannot be used to consider the financial pressures on local authorities as it does not reflect the full picture on all income streams available to fund social care.

The total income from these sources in 2024 to 2025 was £9,668 million. This is an 8% increase on the 2023 to 2024 financial year. Of this, the majority comes from client contributions (48%) and income from the NHS (45%). Figure 9 below provides a breakdown of these income sources and a comparison between 2024 to 2025 and the previous year.

Main points on income

The main points from these sources are:

• income from all these sources increased from 2023 to 2024 and to 2024 to 2025. The largest increase was seen in client contributions
• income from client contributions increased by 14% (£0.6 billion) between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025. It accounted for the highest share of local authority income, overtaking income from the NHS (which increased by 4%)
• 74% (£7,138 million) of total income was allocated to long-term care and 14% (£675 million) was allocated to short-term care. The remaining 12% was used for other expenditure

Figure 9 below shows this income broken down by finance description for 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025.

Figure 9: adult social care external income by finance description 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025

The data from figure 9 is presented in table 11 below:

Table 11: external income by finance description 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025

Finance description	2023 to 2024 (£ million)	2024 to 2025 (£ million)	Percentage change between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025
Client contributions	£4,108	£4,676	14%
Joint arrangements	£122	£144	18%
Income from NHS	£4,236	£4,392	4%
Other income	£456	£456	0%

This data can be found in table 6 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Figure 10 below shows income by finance description, broken down by age band.

Figure 10: income by finance description and age band, long-term care, 2024 to 2025

This data can be found in table 7 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

The main points from figure 10 are that:

• for clients aged 18 to 64 receiving long-term care, the main external income source was income from the NHS (54% or £1.2 billion)
• for clients 65 and over, the main external income source was client contributions (£3.5 billion or 73%)
• income from the NHS was £1.2 billion both for clients aged 18 to 64 and clients aged 65 and over
• income from joint arrangements was higher for clients aged 18 to 64 (£76 million, compared to £26 million) while other income was higher for clients aged 65 and over (£105 million, compared to £61 million)

For short-term care, the distribution of external income sources by age did not vary substantially, with the biggest difference (4%) being in client contributions - 11% for those 18 to 64 and 15% for those 65 and over. Income from the NHS was by far the largest external income source for short-term care representing 85% for those 18 to 64 and 83% for those 65 and over.

Income from the NHS

Income from the NHS was the second largest income source in 2024 to 2025. At £4,392 million, it represents 45% of all income.

BCF is a single pooled budget shared by the NHS and local government and is included in the income from the NHS reported by local authorities. Recording income from BCF became mandatory in the 2017 to 2018 adult social care finance return. In 2024 to 2025 income from BCF made up 58% of all income from the NHS.

This figure reflects actual spending in the ASC-FR compared with the planned minimum BCF spend or spending with social care providers.

Other income sources not reported separately as income in this collection

One area of central funding is the iBCF. The value of the iBCF in financial year 2024 to 2025 was £2.0 billion.

Expenditure funded by the improved BCF and other specific and special grants are captured in the data, but are not reported separately as income in this collection.

Figure 11 below shows how income from specific and special grants increased between 2017 to 2018 and 2024 to 2025. The larger jump in 2020 to 2021 and 2021 to 2022 is due to COVID-19 funding. This includes the Infection Control Fund, and Workforce Capacity Fund. Both of these were reported and recognised as specific and special grants in ASC-FR. Specific and special grants increased by 15% (to £3.9 billion) in 2024 to 2025 compared to 2023 to 2024.

Figure 11: income from specific and special grants, 2017 to 2018 to 2024 to 2025

Table 12 contains the data from figure 11.

Table 12: income from specific and special grants, 2017 to 2018 to 2024 to 2025

Financial year	Income from specific and special grants (£ billion)
2017 to 2018	0.8
2018 to 2019	1.3
2019 to 2020	1.5
2020 to 2021	3.0
2021 to 2022	3.0
2022 to 2023	2.5
2023 to 2024	3.4
2024 to 2025	3.9

This data can be found in the ‘adult-social-care-finance-report-2024-2025-data-tables’ CSV file in the accompanying data pack on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

In additional to the usual funding of adult social care through council tax and grants from central government (such as iBCF), local authorities are able to use an adult social care precept to raise additional funds. This report does not explore how many local authorities have chosen to do this in 2024 to 2025.

7. Unit costs

What a unit cost is

A unit cost is the average cost of providing a set amount of services. For long-term care, unit costs are calculated on a per week, per person basis as follows:

• unit cost equals total expenditure, minus grants to voluntary organisations, divided by total activity (in weeks)

Note, unlike other figures in this report, unit costs are based on the total expenditure minus grants to voluntary organisations, not GCE. No income is excluded from the figure.

Nursing costs are expected to be reported exclusive of FNC (funded nursing care) contributions.

The activity data used in the unit cost calculation is collected as part of the ASC-FR return. Local authorities provide the number of weeks of care provided, which is calculated as follows:

• activity (weeks) equals hours of care provided in week, divided by total hours in the week, multiplied by the number of weeks for which care was provided

The total hours in a week is based on a 24 hour day and therefore 168 hours in a week.

Unit costs by setting and primary support reason

As shown in table 12 below, learning disability support has the highest unit cost in England for the 2024 to 2025 financial year out of all primary support reasons. This applies to clients in all age bands and covers both nursing and residential care.

Unit costs were higher for clients aged 18 to 64 than clients aged 65 and over in 2024 to 2025, across all support settings and primary support reasons.

Table 12: overview of average weekly costs of care per person by primary support reason, age band and support setting, 2024 to 2025

Primary support reason	Nursing: 18 to 64	Residential: 18 to 64	Nursing: 65 and over	Residential: 65 and over
Physical support	£1,403	£1,803	£1,083	£1,232
Sensory support	£1,633	£1,677	£1,077	£931
Support with memory and cognition	£1,489	£1,529	£1,148	£1,159
Learning disability support	£2,058	£1,629	£1,319	£1,629
Mental health support	£1,474	£1,519	£1,090	£1,172

This data can be found in table 53 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

Unit costs also vary by region, as local market factors such as wages influence the cost of care. Figure 12 below shows the average cost of a week of residential or nursing care by region.

Figure 12: average weekly cost of residential and nursing care by region, 2024 to 2025

The main points from figure 12 are that:

• in 2024 to 2025, the highest average cost of a week of nursing and residential care was £1,309 in London
• the North East had the lowest average cost of £1,012 per week
• the second highest cost was the South East (£1,297 per week) followed by the South West (£1,292), East of England (£1,243), West Midlands (£1,170), East Midlands (£1,131), Yorkshire and the Humber (£1,116) and the North West (£1,037)

Local authorities also report the average cost of an hour of home care, per hour. This is split into home care by external providers and in-house provision. Not all local authorities have in-house provision and costs are generally higher than for external provision. The England averages for home care have been population-weighted in this publication, by multiplying the local authority rate by the local authority population and dividing the sum by the England population.

Figure 13 below shows that the average cost of home care has increased between 2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025.

Figure 13: average hourly cost of home care by activity provision, population weighted, year on year comparison (2023 to 2024 and 2024 to 2025)

This data can be found in table 51 of the accompanying ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data tables’ on the Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.

The main points from figure 13 are that:

• the average cost of an hour of external home care provision has increased by 7% (£1.53), to £23.56 since 2023 to 2024
• the average cost of internal provision has increased by £2.08 (6%), to £36.83

Terminology

Local authorities

This report refers to local authorities throughout instead of using ‘councils with adult social services responsibilities’.

Total expenditure

All spending by local authorities including capital charges.

Net total expenditure (NTE)

Total expenditure minus all income sources, plus capital charges.

Gross current expenditure (GCE)

Total expenditure minus capital charges and all income sources, except client contributions.

Gross total expenditure

All spending by local authorities, including capital charges and client contributions, but excluding income from joint arrangements, NHS and other income.

Net current expenditure (also known as local authority spend)

Total expenditure minus capital charges and all income sources.

Gross current public expenditure

Net current expenditure, plus income from the NHS.

Cash terms

This refers to the nominal value of money without adjusting for inflation. It represents the actual amount of money spent or received.

Real terms

This refers to the value of money after adjusting for inflation. It provides a more accurate representation of the purchasing power of money over time by removing the effects of inflation.

Better Care Fund (BCF)

BCF is a single pooled budget shared by the NHS and local government. It is designed to incentivise closer joint working, with a focus on improving clients’ wellbeing.

More details can be found on the local government association website.

Improved Better Care Fund (iBCF)

The iBCF is a grant that provides local government with additional funding for adult social care. It is paid directly to local authorities and must be used to support social care activity.

Long-term care

Any service or support which is provided with the intention of maintaining quality of life for an individual on an ongoing basis.

Short-term care

All or any episodes of support provided that are intended to be time-limited.

Short-term support to maximise independence (ST-Max)

This includes all episodes of support provided that are intended to be time limited, with the intention of maximising the independence of the individual and reducing and/or eliminating their need for ongoing support by the local authority.

Other short-term support

All other short-term services, for example, emergency support not otherwise included in short-term to maximise independence.

Data sources

Finance data for this report is taken from the ASC-FR.

The data is provided by each local authority and processed by DHSC into national, regional, and local analysis which can be found in the associated data tables.

Further information around the data collections can also be found within the data collections and guidance. This is currently still hosted by NHS England, but will move to DHSC by the end of the financial year 2025 to 2026.

Adult social care activity provided or arranged by local authorities covers a wide range of services including long-term and short-term care, plus support to carers. Clients may follow different pathways through the system depending on their needs.

This publication looks at the breakdown of expenditure by local authorities on adult social care they have provided or arranged. It does not cover expenditure on social care activity that is arranged and funded outside of the local authority.

Further information is available in the adult social care data dictionary which sets out the data definitions for each of the collections, alongside the guidance documents for the collection. Both of these documents are currently hosted by NHS England but due to move to DHSC by the end of the financial year 2025 to 2026. Should you have difficulty finding these documents due to the transition, please contact ascfr@dhsc.gov.uk.

This report focuses on GCE, which is total spending minus capital charges and all income except client contributions. See figure 2 in finance overview section.

This report is accompanied by:

• data tables, which provide finance data at national, regional and local authority level
• NCE data tables, which provide NCE finance data at national, regional and local authority level
• a zip file containing:
  • data tables in CSV format
  • universal unique identifiers (UUIDs) mapping guide
  • data quality table
  • metadata document
• a pre-release access list

For the finance data within the report:

• billions are rounded to one decimal place
• millions are rounded to the nearest £ million
• percentages are rounded to the nearest percent

Power BI dashboard

Previous versions of the finance report have included a link to a Power BI dashboard. We have not published a dashboard for this release, but one will be available soon. In the meantime, you can request a downloadable version by emailing us at ascfr@dhsc.gov.uk.

Data quality statement

Purpose

This section constitutes a background data quality report. For more specific information about the quality of the latest year’s data see the data quality table in the ‘Adult social care finance report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data pack’ which is published alongside this report.

This data quality statement will assess the quality of the statistics produced from ASC-FR, which local authorities in England submit to DHSC.

ASC-FR covers adults, defined as those aged 18 or over, and relates to adult social care services. Children’s social services are not covered in this return, nor are services provided to adults on behalf of children (for example, section 17 payments). Some local authorities are known to continue with children’s services for a few clients aged 18 or over - these clients should be included within the adult return. Most of the submitted data is mandatory, however there are a number of voluntary items in the ASC-FR collection.

Overview

Through the respective collections’ working groups, DHSC work with local authorities and other stakeholders to continually develop the data template and the accompanying guidance documents to improve clarity and ease of completion.

Note that the 2021 English census is the most current Office for National Statistics (ONS) population data available at the disaggregation required for this report.

A summary of factors listed by local authorities that affect this year’s data are listed below. These can be considered when reviewing the main findings and analysis. Where local authorities have made us aware of specific issues affecting their provision or data, these can be found in the accompanying excel data quality tables.

Long-term care

The main factors impacting long-term care data quality are:

• local authorities noted increased expenditure due to rising demand and complexity
• revaluation losses, asset disposals and changes in accounting treatment affected some long-term support figures
• income from specific grants (for example: Market Sustainability and Improvement Fund, Discharge Grant) has been reclassified or seen substantial shifts, affecting year-on-year comparisons

Short-term care 

The main factors impacting short-term care data quality are:

• increased demand and investment in reablement services and discharge-to-assess models led to higher short-term support costs for several local authorities
• some local authorities reclassified services from long-term to short-term, especially for mental health and learning disability support

Non-SALT and support services

The main factors impacting data quality for non-SALT and support services are:

• substantial changes in income from NHS, grants and client contributions were reported due to reclassification, backdated adjustments, or cessation of COVID-related funding
• for assistive technology and equipment, some local authorities reported pooled arrangements with the NHS, leading to income exceeding expenditure in this category

ASC-FR additional activity

The main factors impacting data quality for additional activity are:

• several local authorities noted discrepancies between ASC-FR and their social care and public health revenue outturn (RO3) returns for the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government. This was due to timing differences, voluntary completion, or different data sources

Relevance

The report covers expenditure for local authorities in England on social care services for adults aged 18 and over, by service provision and primary support reason. Information on a number of accounting categories is also included, such as income from the NHS, grants provided to voluntary organisations and gross and net expenditure.

The data is used by central government and by local authorities to assess their performance in relation to their peers. It is also available for use by researchers and charities. For example, The Kings Fund looks at local authority performance and clients and the public can use it to hold local authorities and government to account. It has also been used previously by the Care Quality Commission (CQC) for their annual performance assessment, by Age UK, by ONS and the National Audit Office.

Accuracy and reliability

The accuracy of ASC-FR data is the responsibility of the local authorities who submit the data to DHSC. ASC-FR is an aggregate collection taken from administrative systems. As DHSC does not have access to the individual records behind the aggregate counts, we are reliant on local authorities to assess their own data quality, however we aim to assist in this process by providing a bespoke data quality report (point 3 below).

In many instances, assessing reliability depends on local knowledge, as each local authority determines the approach taken in their area. What may be an anomaly in one area could be considered standard practice elsewhere. However, a range of activities are undertaken (outlined in more detail below) to check and improve data quality. Discussions with local authorities have provided useful anecdotal information about distributions and trends.

DHSC perform validation checks within the data returns and provided post-submission data quality reports for each local authority to identify both logical inconsistencies in the data, and where the data submitted is an outlier against either local and national data or against submissions from previous years. Local authorities were then able to review and resubmit data ahead of the deadline or provide explanations for any identified issues.

The submission and validation process for each collection is carried out as follows.

1. Local authority collates the data for submission in the relevant collection form. This form includes inbuilt validations to allow local authorities to check their data for common issues prior to submission.
2. Local authority submits data by the mandated deadline.
3. All local authorities who met this deadline receive a data quality report covering critical validations and providing some derived totals, allowing local authorities to confirm their data is correct.
4. DHSC reviews the quality of all files submitted and may provide additional support to local authorities with substantial data quality issues.
5. Local authorities can resubmit data to amend any identified quality issues.
6. Final deadline for submission.
7. Following the final deadline, DHSC will carry out analysis of the quality of final data. Although local authorities cannot resubmit data after this point, they may be contacted for additional clarification or context.

The validation checks carried out throughout this process included:

• validations across worksheets to check figures across different tables that store the same data
• checks for missing data items
• checks for instances of recorded activity without associated expenditure, or associated expenditure without recorded activity
• comparing the unit costs with those from other local authorities and flagging outliers

ASC-FR contains complex elements and this, combined with the aggregate nature of the collections, means that some data quality issues are not always immediately apparent. Furthermore, the annual nature of the collections means that any issues with the submitted data can sometimes take a while to be identified and worked through with local authorities.

For more detailed queries this can be found on the data quality table tab, ‘Data quality’.

Common issues local authorities advised us of in previous years include:

• allocating expenditure by PSR in the ASC-FR can be challenging as many finance systems are not configured to collect this data

Information on the number of local authorities returning data at the mandated and final deadlines across both collections is available on the ‘submission status’ tab of the accompanying data quality table, in the zip file.

Coverage

Returns were submitted by all 153 local authorities for ASC-FR.

Timeliness and punctuality

Timeliness refers to the time gap between publication and the reference period. Punctuality refers to the gap between planned and actual publication dates.

The ASC-FR data collection is undertaken annually and a report is published each year. This report relates to the financial year 2024 to 2025 and the October publication is being released 7 months after the period to which the data relates and 2 months after the final data was submitted to DHSC.

This publication has been released in line with the pre-announced publication date and is therefore deemed to be punctual.

Accessibility and clarity

Accessibility is the ease with which users are able to access the data, also reflecting the format in which the data is available and the availability of supporting information. Clarity refers to the quality and sufficiency of the metadata, illustrations and accompanying advice.

This publication is available in HTML, in order to meet the government accessibility standard. Data tables are available to download in Excel (ODS) and comma-separated values (CSV) formats to allow the user access to the underlying data.

The publication includes many of the Government Statistical Service recommendations on improving accessibility of spreadsheets for users with disabilities.

ASC-FR does not collect counts of clients and as such is not subject to suppression.

Coherence and comparability

Coherence is the degree to which data that is derived from different sources or methods, but refers to the same topic, are similar.

ASC-FR analyses expenditure by type of service and type of expenditure and income and complies with the 2024 to 2025 Service Reporting Code of Practice (SeRCOP). The SeRCOP guidelines provide details of what should be included within each of the ASC-FR reporting lines. See more details about SeRCOP on the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) website.

The Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (formerly Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities) publishes information on expenditure collected from local authorities through the RO3 return. Expenditure on social care can be seen in the report Local authority revenue expenditure and financing England.

Comparability is the degree to which data can be compared over time and domain, for example, geographic level.

Trade-offs between output quality components

Trade-offs are the extent to which different aspects of quality are balanced against each other.

For the 2024 to 2025 reporting period, 2 submission periods were made available for local authorities. This was consistent with last year’s return. Data quality reports and support were made available to those local authorities who submitted by the first deadline. Local authorities were able to make updates to their data during the validation period. Further detail is available in our data quality tables, however it is important to consider this when reviewing this year’s data and changes over time. 

Assessment of user needs and perceptions

This is the processes for finding out about users and uses - and their views on the statistical products.

There are established working groups whose aim is to manage the development of both data collections to reflect the requirements of users and policy. The groups include representatives from DHSC and local authorities.

Information about the Social Care collection materials 2024 is available at the adult social care data hub. These documents are currently hosted by NHS England but due to move to DHSC by the end of the financial year 2025 to 2026. Should you have difficulty finding these documents due to the transition, please contact ascfr@dhsc.gov.uk.

Changes to upcoming collections can be seen in the most recent September letter.

Performance, cost and respondent burden

The data collection process used in this publication is subject to assurance by the Data Alliance Partnership Board. This is to ensure that data collections do not duplicate other collections, minimise the burden to all parties and have a specific use for the data collected.

The burden of the ASC-FR collection has been assessed and approved, and the burden of any changes to the collection are similarly assessed to ensure that they do not create undue burden for local authorities. 

Confidentiality, transparency and security

This is the procedures and policy used to ensure sound confidentiality, security and transparent practices.

All statistics are subject to a standard DHSC risk assessment prior to issue. The risk assessment considers the sensitivity of the data and whether any of the reporting products may disclose information about specific individuals. Methods of disclosure control are discussed and the most appropriate methods implemented. As a result of this process, finance data is unsuppressed.

DHSC aims to be transparent in all its activities. A description of the collection process and any issues with the quality of the 2024 to 2025 activity and finance data are documented in the data quality tables.

ASC-FR data is submitted to DHSC through a secure electronic file transfer system called Strategic Data Collection Service (SDCS), which is hosted by NHS England. The submitted files are transferred from SDCS and stored on a secure network with restricted access folders.

NHS England publish information on how they comply with the statistics code of practice, including details on their confidentiality policy, a user engagement statement and a corrections policy. Many of these are apply jointly to both NHS England and DHSC.

Use of GDP deflator

GDP deflator

When looking at changes in monetary amounts over time it can be difficult to see whether more or less money has been spent as the real change is often masked by the effects of inflation. Therefore, it is useful to strip out the effects of inflation so the real change in expenditure can be examined - and one way to do this is by use of a deflator.

In this report the GDP deflator is used. The GDP deflator is a much broader price index than the Consumer Prices Index (CPI), Retail Prices Index (RPI) or Retail Prices Index excluding mortgage interest payments (RPIX), which only measure consumer prices. This is because it reflects the prices of all domestically produced goods and services in the economy. The GDP deflator also includes the prices of investment goods, government services and exports and excludes the price of UK imports. The wider coverage of the GDP deflator makes it more appropriate for deflating public expenditure series.

The GDP deflator can be viewed as a measure of general inflation in the domestic economy which can be described as a measure of price changes over time. The deflator is usually expressed in terms of an index (a time series of index numbers) and percentage changes on the previous year are also usually shown.

It reflects movements of hundreds of separate deflators for the individual expenditure components of GDP, which includes expenditure on items such as bread, investment in computers, imports of aircraft and exports of consultancy services.

The time series for the GDP deflator allows for the effects of changes in price (inflation) to be removed so a time series of data, in this case adult social care expenditure, can be expressed in ‘real’ terms.

Information on GDP deflators is sourced from HM Treasury. These are updated quarterly and in index form. The GDP deflators used throughout this report are from June 2025, which were published on 30 June 2025 and are given in the following table.

Table 13: GDP Deflator at market prices and percent change on previous year

Financial year	GDP deflator at market prices - index number	% change on previous year
2008 to 2009	67.038	3.62
2009 to 2010	67.940	1.35
2010 to 2011	69.226	1.89
2011 to 2012	70.450	1.77
2012 to 2013	71.751	1.85
2013 to 2014	73.122	1.91
2014 to 2015	74.016	1.22
2015 to 2016	74.547	0.72
2016 to 2017	76.231	2.26
2017 to 2018	77.430	1.57
2018 to 2019	79.061	2.11
2019 to 2020	80.934	2.37
2020 to 2021	85.277	5.37
2021 to 2022	84.779	-0.58
2022 to 2023	90.759	7.05
2023 to 2024	96.091	5.87
2024 to 2025	100.000	4.07

Source: GDP deflators at market prices and money GDP June 2025, published 30 June 2025, HM Treasury GDP deflators at market prices and money GDP June 2025 (quarterly national accounts)

Example 1 - comparing to 2008 to 2009

In 2008 to 2009, £100 was spent on a piece of equipment for a client. In 2024 to 2025, a replacement piece of equipment had to be bought for £110. In cash terms, the cost of this piece of equipment has risen by £10 (10%). However, if the rate of inflation is taken into account, the cost of the product in 2008 to 2009 at 2024 to 2025 prices would have been £143.16 (see calculation below). This would mean that the product is cheaper in real terms in 2024 to 2025 by £33.16 (23.2%).

Calculation

2008 to 2009 price in 2024 to 2025 real terms, equals 2008 to 2009 price multiplied by (GDP deflator 2024 to 2025 divided by GDP deflator 2008 to 2009).

Therefore: 2008 to 2009 price in 2024 to 2025 real terms equals £100, multiplied by (100 divided by 67.038) equals £149.17.

Example 2 - comparing to last year

In 2023 to 2024, £100 was spent on a piece of equipment for a client. In 2024 to 2025, a replacement piece of equipment had to be bought for £110. In cash terms, the cost of this piece of equipment has risen by £10 (10%). However, if the rate of inflation is taken into account, the cost of the product in 2023 to 2024 at 2024 to 2025 prices would have been £106.23 (see calculation below). This would mean that the product is more expensive in real terms in 2024 to 2025 by £3.77 (3.5%).

Calculation

2023 to 2024 price in 2024 to 2025 real terms, equals 2023 to 2024 price multiplied by (GDP deflator 2024 to 2025 divided by GDP deflator 2023 to 2024).

Therefore: 2023 to 2024 price in 2024 to 2025 real terms equals £100 multiplied by (100 divided by 94.134) equals £106.23.

Contact

If you have any questions about the data published, you can email us at ascfr@dhsc.gov.uk.