Source · Select Committees · Health and Social Care Committee
Recommendation 21
21
Not Addressed
Expand Section 75 use to enable wider budget pooling, including housing and education services.
Recommendation
The Government should expand the use of Section 75 of the NHS Act 2006 by enabling and encouraging more widespread pooling of budgets between NHS bodies and local authorities. This expansion should support the inclusion of a broader range of services—such as housing and education— within Section 75 arrangements to facilitate integrated commissioning and service delivery. Clearer governance and greater cross-cutting oversight of these arrangements would allow funding to follow need rather than organisational boundaries, enabling more person-centred, coordinated support for people with SMI. (Recommendation, Paragraph 143)
Government response summary AI-generated
The government partially accepts the recommendation but then responds by discussing the vital role of mental health social workers and how the 10 Year Workforce Plan and upcoming MSF will address workforce planning and clinical standards, completely ignoring the recommendation to expand Section 75 arrangements for budget pooling and integrated service delivery.
Summary of the government's response below — read the verbatim text to verify.
Government Response
Not Addressed
HM Government · verbatim extract
Not Addressed
The government does not accept this recommendation. The government recognises the potential benefits of increasing the use of section 75 arrangements including to support mental health patients. However, these remain voluntary arrangements and NHS bodies and local authorities can choose how they best use and manage these arrangements to meet the care and health needs of their local population. Partners to section 75 arrangements must have appropriate governance and reporting mechanisms in place and formal accountability remains with the bodies which originally hold the relevant NHS or local authority health-related functions, irrespective of who delivers them.
Read the full response on Parliament ↗