Back to all resources
Category Adult Social Care
Resource type Report
Publishing body LGA

The Care Act 2014: Ten years on from Royal Assent

Introduction

In its 2010 submission to the Law Commission’s consultation on proposals for reforming adult social care law, the Local Government Association (LGA) set out the need for ‘a better alignment between modern adult social care policy direction, its resource base, and the legal framework that underpins it.’ The Commission’s valuable work went on to form the basis of the Care Act, landmark legislation which received Royal Assent in May 2014 and went live in April 2015.

Of course, no Parliament is ever able to truly future-proof legislation. And nobody could have predicted the particular political, economic and societal events of the last ten years, many of which have impacted significantly on adult social care either directly or indirectly. But the government at the time, and the many people involved in bringing the Act to fruition, hoped the legislation would offer a sense of perpetuity. Or, as the then government put it: ‘modern law for 21st century care and support’.