Embargoed: CQC publishes report on Norfolk County Council’s care act responsibilities

Press release embargoed until 00.01hrs on Friday 12 December

Link to the embargoed assessment report is at the very end of this email

The Care Quality Commission (CQC), has rated Norfolk County Council as requires improvement, in how well they are meeting their responsibilities to ensure people have access to adult social care and support under the Care Act (2014).    

CQC has a new duty under the Act to assess how local authorities work with their communities and partners to meet their responsibilities. This includes promoting the wellbeing and independence of working age disabled adults, older people, and their unpaid carers to reduce their need for formal support where appropriate. Where support is needed it should provide people with choice and control of how their care needs are met.

CQC looked at nine areas spread across four themes to assess how well the authority is meeting their responsibilities in order to create their rating. CQC has given each of these nine areas a score out of four with one being the evidence shows significant shortfalls, and four showing an exceptional standard.

Theme	Area	Score
How the local authority works with people	1.    assessing people’s needs	2
	2.    supporting people to lead healthier lives	2
	3.    equity in experience and outcomes	2
Providing support	4.    care provision, integration and continuity of care	2
	5.    partnership and communities	3
How the local authority ensures safety in the system	6.    safe pathways, systems and transitions	2
	7.    safeguarding	2
Leadership	8.    governance, management and sustainability	2
	9.    learning, improvement and innovation	3

Chris Badger, CQC’s chief inspector of adult social care and integrated care, said

“During our inspection of Norfolk County Council, we found a mixed picture of people's experiences accessing adult social care services, with inconsistencies that need to be addressed. While we found some pockets of good practice, the local authority needs to do more work to ensure people have consistently positive experiences of adult social care.  

“Unpaid carers told us their assessments often felt tokenistic and ineffective. Some said they received little or no follow-up, and delays in support for the person they cared for worsened their own health and wellbeing. Others told us about the impact of caring on their physical and mental health and felt the local authority didn’t fully recognise or respond to the strain they were under.

“People also didn’t always have sufficient choice when finding care provision, particularly when they required nursing care or supported living for autistic people and people with a learning disability. This gap in care provision meant sometimes people remained living in placements for longer that weren’t always appropriate for their needs. This had started to improve, and people had been involved in shaping the services they would use in the future.

“However, we did find some positive developments, people told us about the positive impact social workers had made on their lives, with assessments that were strengths-based, meaning staff can focus on what mattered most to the person. We also saw good partnership working with health and housing providers, and the local authority's AI-driven falls prevention tool received consistently positive feedback from partners.

“Norfolk County Council had also taken active steps to understand the barriers and health inequalities people face. Staff worked alongside people from marginalised communities to overcome these challenges, and staff often tailored support to individuals’ needs. This work is ongoing and reflects a commitment to reducing inequalities across the system.

“Norfolk had made key changes to strengthen leadership and accountability, including appointing a new Director of Adult Social Services in October last year. We heard consistently positive feedback about the impact they’d made, including their approachability and visibility.

“Leaders understand what needs to change and have started building the right foundations to deliver better support. We look forward to returning to see how their plans mature and the impact this has on their community.”

The assessment team found:

1. Norfolk County Council was undergoing transformation, with assessments, care planning and reviews identified as improvement priorities. However, people’s feedback showed this had not yet led to consistent improvements. For example, people said the local authority’s information and advice on accessing assessments was not always helpful or leading to positive outcomes.
2. Adult social care services told CQC they often waited too long for feedback after raising safeguarding concerns, creating uncertainty and limiting timely action. Norfolk recognised high referral volumes that didn’t meet the threshold and began work to educate partners.
3. Direct payment uptake remained low. Partners told CQC people struggled with employing personal assistants, especially in rural areas with travel and workforce challenges. The local authority had started working with people to design how to make direct payments more accessible
4. Staff and leaders told CQC that care staff sometimes faced discrimination or abuse from people they were supporting.

However, the assessment team also found:

1. The local authority worked intensively to improve adult social care quality, with staff spending significant time to support services facing challenges. They described how this hands-on support helped adult social care providers address long-standing issues, leading to sustained improvements and better CQC ratings. This also reduced the number of services where Norfolk had imposed admission restrictions due to quality concerns.
2. The local authority involved more than 260 people in designing the Norfolk All Age Autism Strategy 2024–2029. This showed a strong commitment to listening to people with lived experience and ensuring services reflect what matters most to autistic people and their families.
3. The local authority monitored ethnicity data to identify and address inequalities in access and outcomes. Norfolk worked in partnership with local groups representing people from ethnic minority groups to jointly develop and implement actions that aimed to reduce racial inequalities and embed anti-racist practice across adult social care services.

The assessment will be published on CQC’s website on Friday 12 December.  

Notes to editor

Scoring key:

1. Evidence shows significant shortfalls
2. Evidence shows some shortfalls
3. Evidence shows a good standard  
4. Evidence shows an exceptional standard

General demographic information

• Norfolk County Council, located in the East of England, is the fifth largest county in England covering approximately 2000 square miles. Norfolk is bordered by the North Sea to the north and east, Suffolk to the south, Cambridgeshire and Lincolnshire to the west and The Wash to the northwest, and with a coastline that runs for 90miles. The county has distinct features, ranging from urban, to rural to coastline, more than half of Norfolk is classed as rural. 
• Norfolk is home to just over 940,000 residents, 94% of Norfolk population is White, 2.1% Asian, 0.9% Black, 1.6% mixed ethnicity, and 0.7% other. The county has an ageing population, with 25% of people aged over 65. The number of people living in Norfolk who are aged over 85 is expected to double to 60,000 by 2040. The life expectancy at birth for women in Norfolk is 83.7 years, compared to 83.2 in England. For men it is 79.8 compared to 79.3 in England.
• Norfolk has an index of multiple deprivation (IMD) score of 5 (10 is the most deprived) and they ranked 82 out of 153 local authorities, (with 1 being the most deprived and 153 being the least deprived). There were variations to life expectancy for people depending on where people lived with difference between those in a deprived area or affluent area of the county. For example, the life expectancy gap between the most deprived area and the least deprived area is 4.4 years for women and 7.4 years for men.
• Norfolk County Council is an upper-tier local authority, and the county covers seven second-tier district councils. These are Breckland, Broadland, Great Yarmouth, North Norfolk, Norwich, King's Lynn and West Norfolk, and South Norfolk.

Contact

For media enquiries:

• Jennifer Fung, senior regional media and communications advisor – jennifer.fung@cqc.org.uk  
• Alternatively you can email regional.comms@cqc.org.uk

Journalists wishing to speak to the press office outside of office hours can find out how to contact the team on the website.