Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality statement
Published 30 October 2025
Applies to England
© Crown copyright 2025
This publication is licensed under the terms of the Open Government Licence v3.0 except where otherwise stated. To view this licence, visit nationalarchives.gov.uk/doc/open-government-licence/version/3 or write to the Information Policy Team, The National Archives, Kew, London TW9 4DU, or email: psi@nationalarchives.gov.uk.
Where we have identified any third party copyright information you will need to obtain permission from the copyright holders concerned.
This publication is available at https://www.gov.uk/government/statistics/personal-social-services-adult-social-care-survey-report-england-2024-to-2025/personal-social-services-ascs-report-england-2024-to-2025-data-quality-statement
Introduction
This statement details the data quality of the responses submitted by 151 councils with adult social services responsibilities (CASSRs) to the personal social services adult social care survey (ASCS), England: 2024 to 2025. CASSRs will be referred to as ‘local authorities’ throughout this release.
This statement should be used in conjunction with the following documents published as part of this Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 statistical release:
- data quality tables
- wider commentary
- methodology
- question responses and demographic data tables, and time-series data
How the data can be used
This data can be used to:
- understand the experiences and perceptions of adults who receive long-term social care and support services
- benchmark local authorities against each other
- gain insight into social care service users
- measure and monitor local performance
- alongside other local data, gain further insight
- aid policy development
This data cannot be used to make judgements about:
- how effective local authorities are at providing social care and support services
- the social care sector as a whole - short-term service users and those receiving private care are not included
Data presentation
Percentages are rounded to one decimal place and therefore may not add up to 100%.
For presentational purposes, figures are rounded to the nearest 5. Estimated totals are rounded to the nearest 10. Exceptions to this are:
- where tables present data relating to numbers of local authorities
- to reconcile data quality issues where it is not possible to identify the service users nor infer any additional information
Relevance
The data released with this publication is used by:
- central government departments to monitor the impact of social care policy
- local government bodies to assess performance in relation to their peers
The data is also available for use by:
- researchers looking at local authority performance
- service users and the public to hold local authorities and the government to account
Accuracy
Exempt councils
The Isles of Scilly and City of London were exempt from the survey as the number of service users within their areas who met the survey eligibility criteria was too small to guarantee statistically robust results.
City of London chose to still undertake the survey, and its data is included in this release and accompanying data tables. However, care should be taken when analysing and interpreting results that compare the City of London with other local authorities due to its small number of service users.
Non-submitters
Derby City Council outsourced the delivery of its survey and did not receive its responses until after the closure of the submission window. As a result, its responses have not been included in this year’s analysis. Its 2023 to 2024 submission has been used to generate national and regional averages.
Missing data
The ‘Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’ provide an overview of the level of missing administrative data submitted by each local authority. The administrative data is the data completed by the local authority on each of the service users in its sample. These tables provide an overview of the level of missing administrative data for all those in the sample and for those that responded to the survey.
Response rates
The ‘response rate’ is the proportion of sampled service users who responded to the ASCS.
The overall response rate for 2024 to 2025 was 24.4% - this was a decrease from 25.1% in 2023 to 2024. Table 1 below shows how the response rate has fallen each year over the last 5 years.
Table 1: overall response rate achieved for the adult social care survey by year, England, 2020 to 2025
| Year of survey | Response rate (%) |
|---|---|
| 2024 to 2025 | 24.4 |
| 2023 to 2024 | 25.1 |
| 2022 to 2023 | 25.8 |
| 2021 to 2022 | 26.9 |
| 2020 to 2021 | 27.1 |
The data in Table 1 can be found in Table 3 of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
There was variation in the response rates achieved for different questions and between local authorities. The data quality tables provide an overview of the response rates for each question submitted by each local authority - once again, see table 3 of the ‘Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’.
Table 2 below shows a summary of the overall response rates for the 151 local authorities that took part in the survey. 141 of the 151 councils had a response rate under 35%, with 32 local authorities having a response rate of less than 20%.
Table 2: number of local authorities by survey response rate, England, 2024 to 2025
| Response rate (%) | Number of local authorities |
|---|---|
| Less than 20% | 32 |
| 20% to less than 25% | 39 |
| 25% to less than 30% | 47 |
| 30% to less than 35% | 23 |
| 35% to less than 40% | 9 |
| Greater than 40% | 1 |
| Total | 151 |
The data in Table 2 can be found in Table 3 of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Bias
Random sources of bias: confidence intervals and margin of error
Surveys produce statistics that are estimates of the real figure for the whole population, which would only be known had data been collected from the entire population. Therefore, estimates from the sample surveys are always surrounded by a confidence interval that assesses the level of uncertainty caused by only surveying a sample of service users.
A 95% confidence interval gives the range within which it would be expected that the true indicator value would fall 95 times if 100 samples were selected.
The ASCS is designed so that the 95% confidence interval around an estimate of 50% is less than 5 percentage points above or below this estimate. For example, this means that, if the survey gives an answer of 50%, we can be confident that the true figure is between 45 and 55%. However, it should be noted that:
- for local authorities with very small numbers of service users, it is particularly difficult to achieve the margin of error requirement
- margins of error are much smaller at national level than at local authority level as they are based on more respondents
When comparing 2 estimates, where confidence intervals do not overlap, the estimates are considered statistically different.
In a confidence interval, the range of values above and below the sample statistic is called the margin of error. In the example given above, the margin of error is 5 percentage points.
Table 3 below shows a summary of the range of margins of error achieved by each of the local authorities taking part in the survey. In total, 101 local authorities achieved a margin of error of less than 5 percentage points (ppts) - this was a decrease from 104 local authorities in 2023 to 2024.
Table 3: number of local authorities by margin of error at the 95% confidence level around a 50% estimate, England, 2024 to 2025
| Margin of error (ppts) | Number of local authorities |
|---|---|
| Less than 5 | 101 |
| 5 to less than 5.5 | 30 |
| 5.5 to less than 6 | 11 |
| Greater than 6 | 9 |
| Total | 151 |
The data in Table 3 can be found in Table 5 of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
The margin of error for individual questions varies greatly at local authority level and can be considerably higher. See Table 4 of the ‘Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’ for the margin of error for each question at local authority level. Users are advised to refer to this data before analysing results at local authority level.
Non-response and sampling bias
While non-response itself does not cause bias, it can increase the impact of bias if subgroups of the population are more likely to respond than others. This can lead to sampling bias, where certain subgroups of the population are over or under-represented in the results.
The response rates for each question for each local authority are provided in Table 3 of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data quality tables’.
Help completing the survey
Respondents were permitted to have assistance when completing the questionnaire and, although this approach is not preferred, allowing this as part of the survey design is essential to help to make the ASCS as representative of as many service users as possible.
Service users under a deprivation of liberty safeguard (DoLS) authorisation should be excluded from the sampling frame. If a service user is under a DoLS authorisation, then they have satisfied a mental capacity assessment that states they lack capacity to make decisions about their care, which therefore indicates they lack capacity to consent to take part in the ASCS.
The person who helped the service user in completing the questionnaire is reported as help from:
- a care worker
- someone living in the same household
- someone living outside their household
Table 4 below shows that the highest proportion of service users (29.9%) indicated that they had help from someone living outside their household. All response options remain the same as estimates from 2023 to 2024.
Table 4: proportion of service users by whether they had help to complete the questionnaire, England, 2020 to 2025
| Response | Proportion (%) |
|---|---|
| No, I did not have help | 24.2 |
| I had help from a care worker | 25.0 |
| I had help from someone living in my household | 20.9 |
| I had help from someone living outside my household | 29.9 |
The data in Table 4 can be found in Table 1a of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - question responses and demographic data tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Strata are discrete groups the eligible population is split into to perform stratified random sampling. For a full description of the stratified random sampling technique used and the 4 strata, see the Personal social services ASCS report, 2024 to 2025: England - methodology.
Figure 1 below shows the strata profile of service users who responded to the survey question on help provided. It shows a higher proportion of service users who did not have help were in strata 2 and 4 - defined as service users aged 18 to 64, excluding learning disability support (34.2%), and aged 65 and over and in the community, excluding learning disability support (32.0%), respectively.
Service users receiving learning disability support were the most likely to receive some form of support to complete the survey (stratum 1, 91.4%), with most receiving help from a care worker (42.9%).
Figure 1: proportion of service users by the type of help they had to complete the survey and survey stratum, England, 2024 to 2025
| Stratum | No, I did not have help | I had help from a care worker | I had help from someone living in my household | I had help from someone living outside my household | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 - learning disability support (all ages) | 8.6 | 42.9 | 33.2 | 15.3 | 100 |
| 2 - aged 18 to 64, excluding learning disability support | 34.2 | 25.8 | 21.3 | 18.6 | 100 |
| 3 - 65 and over in residential care, excluding learning disability support | 16.9 | 34.1 | 3.6 | 45.4 | 100 |
| 4 - 65 and over in the community, excluding learning disability support | 32.0 | 7.8 | 23.4 | 36.9 | 100 |
The data behind Figure 1 can be found in Table 2a of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - question responses and demographic data tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Completing the survey on behalf of the service user
In addition to asking respondents if they received help, the type of help received was also captured.
While there were instructions on the ASCS covering sheet to say that the service user should be involved in completing the questionnaire, 8.2% of respondents indicated that the service user had not been involved at all in completing the questionnaire, which was the same as the figure for 2023 to 2024. Luton had the highest percentage of service users (20.5%) where someone provided responses for them without asking them the questions. For City of London, no respondents reported having not been involved at all in completing the questionnaire.
Figure 2 below shows the strata profile of the respondents by whether someone answered the questions for them. The chart shows there was a higher proportion of service users in stratum 3 who had someone answer the questions for them. In contrast, there was a higher proportion of service users in stratum 2 who did not have someone answer the questions for them.
Figure 2: proportion of service users by whether someone answered the questions for them by stratum, England 2024 to 2025
| Stratum | Proportion of respondents (%) |
|---|---|
| 1 - learning disability support (all ages) | 8.8 |
| 2 - aged 18 to 64, excluding learning disability support | 3.6 |
| 3 - 65 and over in residential care, excluding learning disability support | 10.6 |
| 4 - 65 and over in the community, excluding learning disability support | 9.3 |
The data behind Figure 2 can be found in Table 2a of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - question responses and demographic data tables’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Method of collection
Of those who responded to the survey, 99.5% of the returned questionnaires were completed by post.
Table 5 below shows 99.5% of surveys were returned by post. As the vast majority were received by post then, at a national, regional and local authority level, there was minimal bias caused by the different methods of data collection.
Table 5: number and proportion of response by method of collection, England, 2024 to 2025
| Method of collection | Number | Proportion (%) |
|---|---|---|
| Post | 60,200 | 99.5 |
| Face to face | 120 | 0.2 |
| By telephone | 165 | 0.3 |
Note: figures in Table 5 are rounded so may not add up to the total sample size.
The data in Table 5 can be found in the CSV of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - data pack’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Adding or modifying questions
Some local authorities requested to add or modify questions to gain specific information from service users using the additional question request form.
The Personal social services: adult social care survey, England - information and guidance for the 2024 to 2025 survey year made it clear that, if a local authority wished to add questions to their questionnaire, then they must seek approval and local research governance processes should be followed. Also, modifications must not be made to any section of the ASCS materials that were not highlighted as requiring input from the local authority unless consent had been given.
This aimed to limit variation between local authorities conducting the survey and helped guard against order effects - for example, how the inclusion of additional questions might impact responses to subsequent questions.
The data from the additional question responses was not returned and did not contribute to this publication.
Timescales of fieldwork
Local authorities were required to select an extract date for their eligible population during the period 30 September to 31 December 2024.
Local authorities were required to distribute the questionnaires to a random sample of service users who were eligible for the ASCS between January and March 2025. A fixed period was recommended to minimise the impact of any wider contextual issues, such as national news stories, which might have influenced the views expressed by respondents.
Other inconsistencies and issues raised
The response options for questions 16a and 16b in the large-print easy read questionnaire were in the incorrect order in the template. It is not known how many service users received this version of the questionnaire.
Although the impact looked minimal, caution should be taken when reviewing the response options for these questions for users who completed the easy read questionnaire.
Survey materials
The ASCS 2024 to 2025 guidance and materials for councils (including the letters to care homes and supported living managers) were released in September 2024.
Translations
Translated materials were available so local authorities could use the translated versions in the initial mailout where the service users’ known main language was not English.
0.2% of service users who returned a survey completed a translated version of the questionnaire, which was the same as in 2023 to 2024.
Of the translated questionnaires returned, the main languages used were:
- Gujarati (32 returned)
- Tamil (13 returned)
- Arabic (12 returned)
- Bengali (12 returned)
The remaining 43 translated surveys were from the following 12 languages: French, Greek, Italian, Mandarin, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Somali, Spanish, Turkish, Urdu and ‘Other’.
Validations at source
When the questionnaires were returned to local authorities, they were entered onto a data return and, as local authorities completed their data returns, a range of validation checks and flags appeared. These validations were carried out using conditional formatting on the record-level data and a system of flags against the summary data. The record-level validations included:
- the highlighting of invalid and contradictory entries
- missing responses for mandatory questions
The data was summarised into tables, where validations on proportions and values were performed, and flags were provided to local authorities to assist them in assessing the quality of their data before submitting it.
Password protection was applied to the data return to protect the structure of the form and limit what changes could be made.
Once a successful data return submission was made, an automated validation process performed several checks on the data submitted and sent a report to the data submitter. The checks included:
- are the values entered valid for the admin data item or question?
- have question responses been provided for a non-response record?
- are multiple choice selections valid?
- has an extract date been provided in the ‘survey process information’ worksheet?
Local authorities could make numerous submissions and receive a validation report for every submission made. The most recent submission received when the window closed was the one processed for the publication.
Local authorities that did not submit a valid data return in time
The mandated deadline for submitting data returns was 7 May 2025.
151 local authorities taking part in the ASCS submitted a valid data return by the mandated deadline. The one local authority that did not make a submission by the mandated deadline was Derby.
Users of the data may wish to consider this when making comparisons between local authorities.
Post and follow-up validations
All local authorities that submitted a valid data return by the mandated deadline received an individual data quality summary report. The data quality summary report provided summary data for the individual local authority:
- alongside their previous year’s data
- against information collated on data submitted by all local authorities
The report gave the average for all local authorities and flagged where 2024 to 2025 data was statistically different from the average for all local authorities.
Local authorities were then given until 11 June 2025 to make any changes and resubmit their data return. Derby did not make a valid submission by the resubmission deadline.
As part of this validation process, the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) also provided support to local authorities that had queries with their reports or required further guidance or assistance with their resubmission.
Additional checks were performed during the processing of the final data, and a report was produced that flagged data quality issues. The report included invalid responses. The invalid codes were excluded from the aggregated figures in all the data tables published as part of this release, but the other responses for the record were still included.
Table 6 below shows that 9 local authorities reported invalid responses across 14 questions. All invalid responses were associated with questions 20, 21 and 23, affecting between one and 5 records per question for each local authority listed.
Table 6: number of invalid question response options by local authority, England, 2024 to 2025
| Local authority | Question against which there was an invalid response | Number of records affected |
|---|---|---|
| South Tyneside | Question 21 | 2 |
| South Tyneside | Question 23 | 5 |
| Doncaster | Question 20 | 4 |
| Doncaster | Question 21 | 1 |
| Doncaster | Question 23 | 2 |
| Lincolnshire | Question 20 | 1 |
| Greenwich | Question 23 | 2 |
| Lambeth | Question 21 | 1 |
| Southwark | Question 20 | 3 |
| Southwark | Question 21 | 1 |
| Ealing | Question 21 | 1 |
| Hampshire | Question 21 | 1 |
| Westmorland and Furness | Question 20 | 2 |
| Westmorland and Furness | Question 23 | 1 |
The data in Table 6 can be found in the CSV of the accompanying ‘Personal social services ASCS, England: 2024 to 2025 - data pack’ on the Personal social services adult social care survey report, England: 2024 to 2025 page.
Other known data quality issues
Weightings
Weightings were used to calculate a national, regional and council-type estimate, which made the calculation of confidence intervals for these aggregated results more complicated. Details of how these weights were calculated are found in the accompanying Personal social services ASCS report, 2024 to 2025: England - methodology.
Geography
The local authority-level data tables contain disaggregation by local authority, council type and region, in alignment with the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) definitions.
The local authority, region names and codes are also in alignment with those set out in the Office for National Statistics (ONS) guidance for administrative geographies - for full guidance, visit the open geography portal. However, the regions are also slightly different from those defined by the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) - Milton Keynes sits in the South East whereas, for ADASS, it is in the East Midlands.
It should be noted that the classification of council type also differs - the MHCLG groupings used in this publication classify Greenwich as Inner London, and Haringey and Newham as Outer London, whereas the ONS administrative geographies classify Greenwich as Outer London, and Haringey and Newham as Inner London.
Timeliness and punctuality
The data in this publication relates to the financial year 2024 to 2025 and therefore the lag from the end of the financial year is around 7 months.
The survey fieldwork was carried out during the period January to March 2025. The survey data was submitted by 7 May 2025, and the final data was submitted by 11 June 2025.
This final ASCS 2024 to 2025 statistical release was published on 30 October 2025.
Accessibility and clarity
There are no restrictions to access the published data.
All data is published at individual level as part of this release in a CSV format alongside a ‘Guidance for use of the CSV data’ file (in ODS format) that provides guidance and accompanying metadata for this CSV. You can access these files by downloading the Personal social services ASCS report, England: 2024 to 2025 - data pack zip folder.
Some sensitive and personal variables for unique rows were removed from the data set for data protection and disclosure reasons. More information is given in the ‘Guidance for use of CSV data’ file.
This publication has been published on GOV.UK and consists of question responses and demographic data tables, data quality tables and time-series data in ODS format, alongside HTML information on the various aspects of the statistical release.
A web-based ASCS 2024 to 2025 dashboard Power BI comparator tool is also available on NHS England’s adult social care data hub.
Coherence and comparability
The data was derived from consistent data sources and a collection method that was consistent with the 9 previous years (2014 to 2015 through to 2023 to 2024) over which the ASCS was carried out - therefore, there was a high degree of coherence.
There have been no changes to the mandatory questions in the 2024 to 2025 ASCS compared with the 2023 to 2024 survey.
The 2020 to 2021 survey was voluntary and local authorities could choose whether to participate. As not all local authorities took part in the survey, care needs to be taken when comparing aggregated totals - like the ‘all-local authority average’ - to previous years’ data.
Performance, cost and respondent burden
The ASCS collection was mandated for all local authorities with the exception of the Isles of Scilly and City of London for the reasons listed in ‘Exempt councils’ above.
The data collection process used in this publication was subject to the Data Standards Assurance Service (DSAS) on behalf of the Data Coordination Board. This was previously carried out by the Challenging Burden Service. The process ensures that data collections:
- do not duplicate other collections
- minimise the cost to all parties
- have a specific use for the data collected
Visit NHS England’s governance of information standards for more information on the DSAS.
The burden of ASCS has been assessed and approved. The burden of any changes to the collection were similarly assessed to ensure that they did not create undue burden for local authorities.
Confidentiality, transparency and security
The data contained in this publication was collected and prepared in line with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
The content of the ASCS outputs was reviewed as part of the joint Health and social care statistical outputs consultation, which closed on 5 March 2024. Following review of the ASC consultation feedback, the joint DHSC and NHS England action plan agreed that ASCS will remain an annual publication.
The overall commentary has been reduced, along with a reduction of the data quality statement, which will now focus on the statistical tests because this area is of the greatest value to users.
To reduce burden, local authorities no longer need to submit their materials to NHS England for approval and may add up to 6 additional questions. Questions previously approved or from the question bank may be added without seeking approval from NHS England, but any new questions must still be submitted for approval.
Relevant NHS England policies and guidance are as follows:
- Statistical Governance Policy
- Data sharing standard 7b - Duty of Confidentiality
- Freedom of Information process
- ISB1523: Anonymisation Standard for Publishing Health and Social Care Data
- Data Access Request Service
- Data Protection Policy
Users and uses of these statistics
This section contains a summary of users that have found the information in the ASCS publication useful for the purposes set out.
Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework (ASCOF)
The ASCS is used to populate several outcome measures from the ASCOF statistical collection.
DHSC
The ASCS is used to:
- inform policy monitoring
- inform speeches and briefings for ministers and senior officials
- answer Parliamentary questions and Prime Minister’s questions
- answer media enquiries and inform other correspondence
Care Quality Commission (CQC)
The ASCS data is used in the CQC’s State of Care reports. This annual report looks at the trends, shares examples of good and outstanding care, and highlights where care needs to improve.
The ASCS data has been used to:
- highlight an understanding of care satisfaction among service users in care
- support the claim that there is difficulty getting information about services for cohorts of users
- support the claim that satisfaction varies regionally
Government Statistical Service
The ASCS publication is listed in the adult social care landscape tool, which brings together Official Statistics data and publications relating to adult social care from a range of publishers.
Local authorities
Local authorities will use the survey in different ways but there will be some commonality between them. Ways in which local authorities use the survey will include:
- benchmarking against other local authorities
- measuring and monitoring local performance
- policy development
- service development, planning and improvement
- management information, local reporting and accountability
- informing business cases
- identifying any immediate priorities or areas for concerns
Academics and other known users
The data is used by the Personal Social Services Research Unit at the University of Kent to explore and understand variations in quality and outcomes in social care services. The results of these analyses are used to feed into social care policy and practice - in particular, ASCOF.
Unknown users
The survey publication is free to access online and therefore many users will access this publication without being known. It is important to understand how these users are using the statistics and to gain feedback on how to make the data more useful.
Related publications
This report forms part of a suite of statistical releases. Other releases cover information on the wider scope of activity and social services provided for adults by local authorities, and are available in the adult social care data hub.
Previous ASCS publications were published by NHS England.