Personal Social Services Expenditure and Unit Costs - England, 2007-2008

• gross current expenditure by Councils with Social Services Responsibilities in England on Personal Social Services was £20.7 billion. This represents an increase of 3 per cent in cash terms since 2006/07 but little change in real terms . Over a longer term, this represents a real term increase of 11 per cent since 2003-04 and 53 per cent over the 10 years from 1998-99.
• of the £20.7 billion, expenditure on Adults services accounted for £15.3 billion, similar in real terms to 2006-07; the remaining £5.4 billion was spent on Children's and Families services which represents an increase of 1 per cent since 2006-07 in real terms.
• expenditure on residential provision for all client groups accounted for 41 per cent and day and domiciliary provision for all client groups accounted for 43 per cent of total gross current expenditure, whilst assessment and care management accounted for 16 per cent.
• expenditure on services for children and families accounted for 26 per cent of total gross current expenditure, whilst expenditure on services for older people accounted for 42 per cent. Of the remaining expenditure, 17 per cent was on services for learning disabled adults, 7 per cent on physically disabled adults, 5 per cent on adults with mental health needs and 2 per cent on services for other adults, asylum seekers or service strategy.
• the average cost per adult aged 18 and over supported in residential care, nursing care or intensively in their own home was £559 per person per week.
• the expenditure on Direct Payments for adults was £452 million. This is an increase of 23 per cent in real terms from 2006/07 and over three times the figure in 2003/04 in real terms (although from a very small base). The percentage of gross expenditure used for direct payments for adults equates to 2 per cent of the overall gross current expenditure in 2007-08.

Please note a correction was made to the final bullet point regarding Direct Payments in the summary facts and figure 3.2 on page 13 of the report on 27 February 2009.