Guidance to be applied to all tables

All provision of equipment and adaptations should be counted in SALT as ongoing low level support even if the work needs to be maintained on an ongoing basis, for example through ongoing maintenance contracts, safety inspections etc. In the ASC-FR return equipment is treated separately and will be appropriately accounted for but checks on safety and maintenance do not constitute long term support in SALT .All provision of equipment and adaptations should be counted in SALT as Ongoing Low Level Support even if the work needs to be maintained on an ongoing basis, for example through ongoing maintenance contracts, safety inspections etc. In the ASC-FR return equipment is treated separately and will be appropriately accounted for but checks on safety and maintenance do not constitute long term support in SALT.

For new requests for support where the client is in prison, each prisoner should be counted under route of access ‘Prison’ if there is a prison in the area. Requests for support relating to individuals who are leaving prison and returning to the community should not be reported in this category, the most appropriate alternative route of access should be selected. For those councils where there is no prison in the area, the cells should be left blank as a new request for support would go to the council area in which the prison is located.

For clients in a prison setting the following sequels to support or support settings/delivery mechanisms should be applied, if you are supporting a client that is in a prison outside of your council area you should also apply these:

Clients detained in a prison setting in receipt of a personal budget should be recorded here. In order to be counted as a personal budget client see the definition of personal budget. This category includes flexible provision made to clients which does not meet the definition of a ‘direct payment’ above (e.g. vouchers or other forms of credit).

CASSR commissioned support only

A client detained in a prison setting with a package of services provided by the local authority but not under a personal budget should be counted in this category. Relevant mental health professional support may be counted here if the value of the support has not been calculated and offered through a personal budget. This would only be for clients receiving ongoing mental health support which is part of a support / care plan following an assessment.

A full-cost client is one who pays the full direct costs of the services they receive but whose support is arranged by the local authority which includes regular reviews, support planning etc.

These clients should be INCLUDED in all the SALT measures that apply.

A self-funded client is one who pays the full direct cost of the services they receive and they decide not to take up any offer of support planning / care management (e.g. regular reviews) offered by the local authority. They should be excluded from the LTS measures (but may appear in the STS measures) because there is no way to reliably track their social care outcomes.

Other clients whose support is not funded by the local authority or where there is no social care component (for example 100% health funded clients) are excluded from all measures. This includes clients where care arrangements are put in place by the local authority on behalf of the NHS and/or the costs recharged to them.

The Primary Support Reason (PSR) is essentially why the individual requires support and is fully described in the ASC Data Dictionary.

For existing clients the recording of PSR should occur at the point of being assessed. It is expected that this information will be captured on an ‘as needed’ basis for the purpose of this measure, rather than all clients receiving support being arbitrarily or automatically assigned a PSR at the beginning of the year. Within SALT it is possible that in some instances a different PSR may be reported in relation to Short Term Support than is reported in relation to the client’s Long Term Support services.

Only one PSR can be chosen per sequel. This should be identified and recorded at the point of assessment and any changes recorded during subsequent reviews. Secondary support reasons could be captured locally if useful in supporting service commissioning, etc. If more than one PSR has applied during the year, choose the most recent.

Although carers’ may have a PSR of Social Support – Support for Carer they may also be receiving social care support in their own right, therefore their PSR will not necessarily be Social Support – Support for Carer. One way to ensure all carers are identified may be to flag individuals as having a Carer Role. This will allow easy cross referencing of carers’ services and social care services for the same individual.

The primary support reasons captured within SALT relate to the client’s social care need, not the carer’s need. If there is no linked service user or the PSR is not known, then the category ‘No PSR – cared-for person not recorded or details not current’ should be used.

As defined in the ASC Data Dictionary, clients may have support provided by an unpaid carer. This includes support from family, friends and neighbours where the client has identified “there is someone who helps me”.

For SALT there is a need to distinguish between clients who have an identified carer from those who do not. Carers should be identifiable from the client database used by the local authority (i.e. there is the potential to report details about the carer(s) linked to clients). It is not necessary for the carer to be in receipt of support for their caring role and they will not necessarily have been assessed or reviewed for support during the year.

Carers who have themselves received support and fall into another SALT table (i.e. they are both a new client for SALT purposes and a carer) should be included in all relevant measures. Thy may themselves have their own carer (for example in the case of a husband and wife who care for each other, both receiving social care support – each is a service user and a carer). For this reason, councils should not rely on the Primary Support Reason of ‘Social Support – Support to Carer’ as the sole means of identifying carers because it would miss service users who also act as carers.

Paid care workers funded by direct payments, provided as part of a commissioned service or in a residential and nursing care setting are not in the scope of the SALT collection and so should not be counted as ‘carers’. Similarly, those in a prison setting should also not be counted as having a carer.

It is not always possible to identify whether a client receiving ST-Max has a carer so they should be recorded as Not Known. Where a client is receiving long term support the carers status should always be known.

Where the service helps both the service user and the carer, local authorities need to make a judgement as to who benefits the most.

Mental health support tends to be significant in terms of cost, intensity and duration. Support might be required for months at a time or longer, will meet eligibility criteria and necessitate a support plan being drawn up for the client. Where such criteria are met, support to mental health clients should be treated as long term support in SALT and is eligible to be included in the LTS001 measures.

The definition of a personal budget is that:

The person (or their representative) has been informed about a clear, up front allocation of funding, enabling them to plan their support arrangements.

There is an agreed support plan making clear what outcomes are to be achieved with the money.

The person (or their representative) can use the money in ways and at times of their choosing.

Within SALT gender is defined as the gender the individual considers themselves to be. A voluntary data item, ‘Other’, has been added this year for clients who do not identify as male or female.

Ethnic categories are a modification of a subset of those used in the 2011 Census. It is recognised that some local authorities may break some ethnic categories down into greater detail in order to account for local issues, but they must be rolled up and reported as presented here (see the ASC Data Dictionary for more detail on ethnic categorisation). The numbers counted may be very small for some or many of the ethnic groups in some authorities. The data will be amalgamated across authorities for regional or national analysis purposes.

Transition from children to adult services should be treated as a request for support from a new client and dealt with within SALT as follows: If the formal transfer of services occurred in advance of (or on) their 18th birthday then the client should start to be reported in SALT once they have turned 18. Their 18th birthday should be treated as a ‘request for support’ and be reported in SALT measure STS001 (Route of access = Planned entry (transition)), with any eligible services or review captured at that point in the LTS measures. Their 18th birthday should be recorded for use within SALT LTS001c when considering clients who have accessed long term support for more than 12 months. Authorities will need to consider locally how they track transition of such cases.