General guidance

The following sections provide guidance on some of the common terms and categories used throughout the finance return. This section will cover all guidance relating to:

• expenditure (own provision, provision by others, grants to voluntary organisations)
• income (client contributions, joint arrangements, income from NHS, other income)
• capital charges
• gross SSMSS (social services management and support services)
• primary support reasons

For specific information about how to complete particular sections of the return, please consult the relevant chapter of this document.

Detailed definitions of the expenditure categories are given in the CIPFA Service Expenditure Analysis (SEA) for Adult Social Care, which form part of Service Reporting Code Of Practice (SeRCOP). The guidance provided below is intended to provide further clarification of any ambiguities and potential overlaps between the measures.

In line with the 2023-24 RO forms, councils with adult social services responsibilities (CASSRs) should complete the ASC-FR on a non-International Accounting Standard 19 (IAS19) basis in 2023-24. Private finance initiative (PFI) schemes should also be treated off balance sheet (in line with the RO).

Own provision (including joint arrangements)

Own provision refers to all the services plus associated costs provided by the local authority (LA) for itself as part of its in-house services.

Provision by others

Provision by others includes the voluntary, private and independent sector. It can also include services bought from another LA. Other provision should also include a proportion of the overheads. Even if these overheads are the authority’s own expenditure they should still be apportioned and allocated to the service to which they relate, including 'other provision'.

Grants to voluntary organisations

Grants to voluntary organisations to enable them to provide a service should be included under the column ‘Grants to Voluntary Organisations’ (Non SALT and Totals worksheet Column F). Additionally, record in this column any expenditure for which you are unable to match activity. Such grants should be recorded against the most appropriate finance measure, such as grants to the third sector aimed at supporting people in the community through low-level support or advocacy should be included in the Information and Early Intervention measure.

This expenditure is not included for the calculation of unit costs.

Recording costs associated with agency staff, supplies and services

If the agency staff are part of the internal social work team, with internal line management for example, they should be included within the internal provision section of the return. If the social work service is ‘purchased’, such as from a mental health trust, then this will be an externally provided service.

Differentiating between own provision and provision by others

The distinction between own and other is whether the LA 'provided it' (own) or 'bought it' (other).

Representing expenditure on a service delivered via joint provision

This is usually a partnership arrangement between local authorities and NHS bodies. Both parties may fund the provision in some way or another, but the LA is only expected to show the income and expenditure relating to its own contribution. Expenditure made by the local authority which is funded by the Better Care Fund should be included in the overall expenditure figures for the council.

Disabled Facilities Grant

Expenditure on Disabled Facilities Grant should be excluded from the ASC-FR.

Client contributions (sales, fees and charges)

All expenditure should be recorded on a gross basis with contributions from clients being recorded separately in the ‘Income: client contributions’ column. In particular:

For supported residents in private residential and nursing homes, the full cost should be shown under expenditure and any contribution by the client should be shown under ‘income: client contributions’ (it may be necessary to obtain these figures specially or estimate them if your CASSR pays the homes concerned on a net basis).

In the case of residential homes run by your CASSR, the total gross cost of running the home should be shown under expenditure. Residents’ client contributions, contributions by their relatives, and payments by full-cost paying residents should all be shown under client contributions.

Third party 'top-up' payments (contributions from a third party, usually a relative, to enable a client to occupy a more expensive place than the CASSR is prepared to pay for) should be excluded from income and expenditure, even if the CASSR pays the full cost and reclaims the 'top-up' from the third party. Local authorities have reported difficulty in the ability to separate out third party payments from the overall client contribution income. Therefore, if third party payments can be separately identified, then this should be excluded from income and expenditure. Otherwise, if third party payments cannot be separately identified, then it is ok to include in both. If you aren't able to exclude third party top-up payments, then please let us know in the comment box on the proforma.

In the case of personal budgets (whether delivered through a managed budget or direct payment), the total monies to be used for the purchase of services should be shown under expenditure and the service user’s contributions should be shown in the income: client contributions column even if the user pays the service provider direct. Note that expenditure on direct payments must be recorded in the ‘Provision by Others’ column and not under ‘Own Provision’.

Income received as a result of deferred payment agreements should be captured in this section as with any income from client contributions.

Joint arrangements

It is important to bear in mind when completing the ASC-FR that expenditure and activity should be recorded in a consistent fashion so that derived average and unit costs are meaningful. The SEA states that in the case of pooled budgets and joint arrangements, only the CASSR’s own expenditure contribution should be recorded; this is also the case for care trusts (SeRCOP). To produce meaningful average and unit costs, it follows that only the CASSR’s share of activity should be recorded in the return. Often this will be clearly known but, if not, it will often be possible to estimate this based on the activity-based returns, such as the Short and Long Term Support (SALT) collection and split pro-rata to expenditure. If, in rare exceptions, joint activity cannot be split, the total joint expenditure should be entered, and the other party’s contribution should be shown under income from joint arrangements.

Similarly, if a client is planned to receive services which would be delivered (provided or commissioned) through adult social care and paid for from this expenditure but also receives funding from other sources then only include the funding associated with adult social care. If the individual has no adult social care funding at all, then exclude them.

Please note that jointly funded packages of care with funding provided by the NHS should not be captured in this category, and this element should instead be included in ‘Income from NHS’.

Income from NHS

A separate column is included in the ASC-FR to record ‘Income from NHS’.

This should include all income received from NHS bodies which has been spent on the provision of adult social care. This also includes funds received as part of a joint arrangement with an NHS body (such as a Section 75 agreement), which should be recorded in this column and not in the ‘Joint arrangements’ column.

Income received by the local authority as part of the Better Care Fund (BCF) should also be recorded under ‘Income from NHS’. The proportion of overall income from the NHS which comes from the better care fund should be recorded in the section provided in the non-SALT worksheet.

The Improved Better Care Fund (iBCF) is not income from the NHS so should not be included as ‘Income from NHS’.

It is worth noting that in most cases, local authorities will be the accountable body for pooled budgets (that is all the spending sits within their accounts). This means that local authorities should include spending on adult social care that is funded by the NHS but exclude any funding that is on health care.

Section 256 (formerly section 28a)

Under Section 256, health bodies can reimburse CASSR expenditure. The CASSR expenditure should be recorded gross of these contributions and the contributions should be shown under ‘Income from NHS’.

NHS–funded nursing care

Expenditure on NHS-funded nursing care placements should be recorded net of NHS payments for funded nursing care. CASSRs will not always know the amounts involved and so may only be able to show expenditure net of such contributions in their accounts. Any such payments passing through the CASSR’s accounts should be netted off any gross payments to give the expenditure to be entered on the ASC-FR. Note that this expenditure should be excluded from the ‘Income from NHS’ column in the Long and Short Term measures.

Section 75 agreement

Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 allows partners (NHS bodies and councils) to contribute to a common fund which can be used to commission health or social care related services. This power allows a local authority to commission health services and NHS commissioners to commission social care. It enables joint commissioning and commissioning of integrated services. This income should be shown under ‘Income from NHS’ column.

Other income

Income received from other CASSRs for services provided to them should be netted off gross expenditure, and not be included in the 'Own Provision' column, Non-SALT and Totals worksheet. If it is not possible to exclude the other CASSRs’ clients from the activity measures, then the income should be included in column ‘Other Income’.

Charitable contributions made to the local authority which are spent on adult social care should be captured here.

Local authorities should not record NHS income or include third party 'top-up' payment contributions in this ‘Other income’ category.

Information about the definition of total cost can be found in section 2 of SeRCOP.

Capital charges, such as depreciation, loss of impairment of assets, credits for capital grants and Revenue Expenditure Funded from Capital under Statute (REFCUS), should be recorded under service related expenditure (columns D and E) and as capital charges (columns P and Q).

Capital charges and other residual costs associated with the closure of establishments should be included in Commissioning and Service Delivery Measure (columns D and E) and as capital charges (columns P and Q).

Capital charges, such as depreciation, loss on impairment of assets and credit for amortisation of capital grants, should be recorded in the ASC-FR. It should be noted that credit for amortisation of capital grants is included, but the element of notional interest should be excluded from capital charges.

A text field is included in the ASC-FR (cell B63 of the ‘Activity’ worksheet) to enable CASSRs to notify NHS England and CIPFA if their average or unit costs are not comparable with previous years because of capital or property revaluations.

Social Services Management and Support Services (SSMSS) - in the ASC-FR return only the overheads of the business are included.

The SSMSS column will include things like ICT, HR, property and finance costs, which may be directly or indirectly assigned to primary support reasons. SSMSS overheads should be included and recorded under service related expenditure (columns C, D and E) which forms part of the NCE calculation. These costs are also recorded separately in the SSMSS column (column S). These should be included in the SSMSS column, so that the actual service cost for comparison purposes can be deduced. Some overhead costs are charged directly, such as ICT equipment and phone charges, but these are true costs of running the business and aren’t generally included in SSMSS (where they aren’t are not charged directly they may end up as part of the overall ICT overhead included in the SSMSS column, but these differences would not be material enough to affect unit costs).

How to categorise financial assessment officers

Financial assessment teams are usually considered a finance or ‘back office’ function and treated like all other finance, ICT or HR costs. These are the overheads of the business which are recharged across client groups and included in the ‘SSMSS’ column of the ASCFR.

Overheads that are charged directly to a frontline service

If overheads are charged directly to a frontline service (for example to long term support) and therefore included within these costs, the overhead element should be identified and quantified in the relevant SSMSS column for information so that the care element only can be identified.

The difference between the SSMSS column in PSS-EX1 and ASC-FR

The difference is that commissioning and service delivery is no longer apportioned across the client groups (now PSR’s) as it has its own reporting line. This is effectively the management cost of the service.

Re-allocating expenditure across the form

Where overheads are charged directly, they should be identified and quantified in the SSMSS column otherwise they should be extracted and apportioned to the relevant PSRs.

ASC-FR requires expenditure to be split by primary support reasons (PSR) in both the long term and short term sections of the return. This is intended to improve the information available locally and nationally on the needs and health condition or cognitive disability of individuals.

There are 6 mandatory PSRs, some of which are broken down into further sub-classifications (see Adult Social Care Data Dictionary). The Short and Long Term Support (SALT) Return and the ASC-FR proforma PSRs are at different levels. In SALT for example, under classification 'Physical Support', sub-classifications ‘Access & Mobility’ and ‘Personal Care Support’ are reported separately whereas in ASC-FR the cost of these services is aggregated under 'Physical Support'. This applies to all PSRs in ASC-FR except 'Social Support' where costs are broken down and reported under each of its 3 sub-classifications.

The full definitions attached to PSRs and support settings can be found in the Adult Social Care Data Dictionary which underpins both the Finance (ASC-FR) and the SALT returns.