Oedolion sy'n derbyn gofal a chymorth: adroddiad ansawdd

Data description

The adults receiving care and support statistics release provides annual information on the characteristics and attributes of adults receiving care and support, i.e. who had a care and support plan.

Statistics are presented for those adults with a care and support plan at any point during the reporting year 1 April to 31 March, with a further snapshot of analysis on those with a care and support plan on 31 March.

Classification system

Data is collected as per the detailed guidance issued for each reporting year. Local authorities are required to submit individual level data for the section on “Core details” for all adults who had a care and support plan at any point during the reporting year (regardless of the time the adult had a plan and whether they had a plan on 31 March). Local authorities are required to submit individual level data for the section on “Care and support details” only for those adults who had a care and support plan on the census date of 31 March.

Core details

• Local authority code
• Local authority adult identifier
• Date of birth
• Gender
• Ethnicity
• Disability
• Language
• Date latest continuous period of care and support began
• Care and support plan active on 31 March
• Date care and support plan closed
• Reason for closure
• Adult safeguarding
• Category of safeguarding

Care and support details

• Residence
• Current safeguarding
• Types of care and support
• Has a known carer
• Caring responsibilities
• Events

Statistical concepts and definitions

Adult

An adult is defined under Section 3 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation) as a person who is aged 18 or over.

Adult at risk

An adult at risk is defined under Section 126 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation) as an adult who is experiencing or is at risk of abuse or neglect; has needs for care and support (whether or not the authority is meeting any of those needs); and as a result of those needs is unable to protect himself or herself against the abuse or neglect or the risk of it.

Care and support plan

Care and support (and support) plans are defined under Section 54 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation). To have a care and support plan, adults will have had an assessment of their care and support needs which concluded that the adult has eligible needs that can only be met through the provision of a care and support plan. Part 4 Code of Practice (Meeting Needs) under the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 provides information on the duties of a local authority in meeting needs for care and support.

Carer

A carer is defined under Section 3 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation) as a person who provides or intends to provide care for an adult or disabled child. A person is not a carer for the purposes of the Act if the person provides or intends to provide care under or by virtue of a contract, or as voluntary work.

Disability

A person is considered “disabled” under Section 3 of the Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 20144 (UK legislation) if the person has a disability for the purposes of the Equality Act 2010.

The Welsh Government accepts the social definition of disability, in which it is recognised that people with impairments are disabled by barriers that commonly exist in society. However, data has been collected based on the Equality Act 2010 which uses the medical definition of disability.

Population estimates

The rates of adults receiving care and support relative to the general population aged 18 and over have been calculated based on mid-year population estimates provided by the Office for National Statistics (ONS). Those estimates for the period included in the reporting year are used, e.g. rates for 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 data were based on mid-2023 estimates.

Statistical unit

Statistics are published for adults with a care and support plan either during the reporting year or on the census date of 31 March.

The data on safeguarding shows the primary category of concern recorded for adults who had safeguarding enquiries in the reporting year resulting in care and support protection plans; for which an adult may have more than one category of concern.

The data on types of care and support received shows the different types of care and support being received by adults with a care and support plan on 31 March by type of residence and age; for which an adult may be provided with more than one type of care and support.

Statistical population

The statistics should refer to all adults with a care and support plan either during the reporting year or on the census date of 31 March.

Not all adults with a care and support plan were included for the reporting year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. The number of adults receiving care and support with a care and support plan on 31 March 2024 does not match with AD/012a the number of adults with a care and support plan from the Social Services Performance and Improvement Framework dataset (StatsWales) due to some local authorities including different populations.

One key difference is that metric AD/012a includes adults receiving social services care and support with the Care and Treatment plans (as set out in The Mental Health (Care Co-ordination and Care and Treatment Planning) (Wales) Regulations 2011 (UK legislation)). In this case care and treatment plans serve the functions of a care and support plan and the adult would have an allocated social worker, or their care coordinator was from a social services department. From the reporting year 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2026 such adults with a care and treatment plan, where the local authority social services department has access to the data necessary for completion, i.e. if the data is already held by the local authority, rather than with the health board, are to be included in the Adults receiving care and support census.

Further information can be found in the quality assessment section.

Reference area

Statistics are published at Wales and local authority level.

Time coverage

Data is collected on an annual basis for a reporting year from 1 April to 31 March. Some data items are collected for those with a care and support plan on 31 March only. Data is available from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Source data

The Adults receiving care and support data is collected directly from individual local authorities. Data collection is based on detailed guidance.

Frequency of data collection

Data is submitted to Welsh Government from individual local authorities on an annual basis for a reporting year from 1 April to 31 March. Data is expected to be returned by the end of the October following the close of the reporting year.

Data collection

Data is submitted on Excel spreadsheets directly from each individual local authority via Objective Connect, a web-based tool to securely share and receive files. Data contains one record for each adult who had a care and support plan during the reporting year. More data is provided for those adults who had a care and support plan on the census date of 31 March. Data includes a local authority identifier which is a unique ID for each adult and is retained from year to year.

Data validation

Data validation occurs at multiple stages before publication.

Local authorities undertake their own validations prior to submitting data to Welsh Government. There will be some differences in the types of validations carried out by local authorities, largely because of underlying differences in administrative data systems.

A return is received by Welsh Government where further validation is performed to improve data quality.

Using automated queries built into the data processing system , the validation exercise flags anomalous records. Using SQL queries run via SQL Server Management Studio, initial validations on the data whilst it is loaded into the raw database includes checks on invalid codes, data outside expected range and missing data.

R scripts are then used to conduct more in-depth validation exercises informed by the initial stages of statistics production. 

All records in question are returned to local authorities for investigation.

Any records which have any of the following issues are flagged as part of the validation exercise.

• Missing data.
• Invalid codes other than those detailed in the data collection guidance.
• Adult ID length is more than 10 characters.
• Duplicate local authority and/or adult IDs.
• Age falling outside the expected range of 18 to 115.
• Disability stated but no categories of impairment stated
• No disability stated but categories of impairment stated
• Date latest continuous period of care began after date care and support plan closed
• Date latest continuous period of care began after reference date
• Date latest continuous period of care began before date of birth
• Care and support plan active on 31 March but date care and support plan closed and/or reason for closure stated
• Care and support plan not active on 31 March but no date care and support plan closed and/or reason for closure stated
• Date care and support plan closed outside the reference date
• Date care and support plan closed stated but no reason for closure stated (or vice versa)
• Adult safeguarding stated but no category of safeguarding stated
• Emotional/psychological (only) stated as category of abuse but other categories also stated
• Care and support plan active on 31 March but no care and support details provided
• Care and support details provided where care and support plan not active on 31 March
• Residence and types of care and support mismatch
• Number of events not an integer

Welsh Government compiles analyses in the format required for publication and conducts some final validations in the form of checks for outliers as well as sense checking aggregate numbers and trends.

Data compilation

Each individual local authority submits a return with one record for each adult who had a care and support plan during the reporting year. Data is processed and validated by the Data Collection team in Welsh Government. Identifiers are removed to anonymise the data and data is aggregated to produce breakdowns for analysis and publication.

Any rates of adults receiving care and support relative to the general population are calculated based on the closest Office for National Statistics mid-year population estimates for the period included in the reporting year, e.g. rates for 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 data were based on mid-2023 estimates.

Adjustment

Ordinarily, adjustments are not necessary. If codes other than those detailed are submitted, these are queried with relevant local authorities and amended to align with expected codes as per the detailed guidance. Any further anomalies identified as part of validation are queried with local authorities in advance of publication. Where data has not been provided, this is recorded as missing data.

Quality assurance

Our statistics are produced to high professional standards set out in the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority). They are produced free from any political interference.

Quality assurance is undertaken in line with the Statistical Quality Management Strategy and the Quality pillar of the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority).

The Adults receiving care and support data is individual-level and allows for detailed validation checks on every record for different data items, which is not possible with aggregated datasets.

Data is also checked at aggregate level against other sources, for example where possible, data items are compared against the Social Services Performance and Improvement Framework dataset, and local authorities are required to explain and reconcile differences.

Quality assessment

The statistics in this release are assessed each year and meet the requirements of the Code of Practice for Statistics.

These statistics are published as official statistics in development (Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR)). The underpinning data collection process is newly created and continues to be embedded across all local authorities. Therefore, some data items in this collection may be incomplete or not comply to exact standardisation across all returns. However, we have taken the decision to publish these statistics to account for known user needs whilst we work on improvements in the collection as we work towards official statistics status.

User needs

These statistics inform users about the number and characteristics of adults receiving care and support. The number with a care and support plan gives a high-level overview of social services demand.

The main users of the statistics are:

• Ministers, members of the Welsh Parliament (Senedd) and the Members Research Service in the Welsh Parliament (Senedd)
• officials within the Department for Health, Social Care and Early Years in Welsh Government
• other areas of the Welsh Government
• local authorities and their partners
• the research community including students, academics and universities
• individual citizens, third sector organisations and private companies
• other UK government departments
• media

The statistics are used in a variety of ways. Some examples of these are:

• advice to ministers
• to inform debate in the Welsh Parliament and beyond
• to provide publicly available data on general practice workforce in Wales
• to inform local authority social services departments practice and planning

If you are a user and do not feel the above list adequately reflects your needs, please let us know via stats.pss@gov.wales.

User satisfaction

Feedback relating to the adults receiving care and support statistics is welcome and can be submitted to stats.pss@gov.wales.

Completeness

Not all local authorities provided complete returns for 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

• Date of latest continuous period of care was missing for all adults from Flintshire (4.9% of Wales total).
• Less than 1.0% of adults refused to provide information on preferred language.
• Residence information was missing for less than 1.0% of adults.
• Caring responsibilities information was missing for 16.5% of adults.

Percentages are calculated based on those adults where known information was provided and are rounded to the nearest one decimal place. Where information was not available, this is clearly indicated on StatsWales.

Overall accuracy

Data is sourced from a new data collection, as such statistics are considered official statistics in development. Data quality issues have been identified which are expected to improve in future years. Broadly, these relate to missing data and inconsistencies in the way data is reported.

The statistics are based on administrative data. Consequently, data entry and processing errors (non-sampling error) are possible. These could occur when data are entered incorrectly into administrative systems or through measurement errors resulting from inconsistent interpretations of definitions.

To reduce non-sampling error, detailed guidance provides explanations of the data items and response categories captured within the data collection, and a range of data validation checks are performed prior to publication.

Officials currently meet with data providers on a quarterly basis where data reporting is discussed and any issues are resolved. Given data is collected annually it may be that changes to guidance are not implemented until the net reporting year.

Data revision

The published statistics are not routinely revised, however there may be changes to previous years’ data identified as part of processing data for the current year. It may take time to update local authority systems which could mean changes particularly in relation to activity shortly before the end of the reporting year.

If an error is discovered after publication, statistics will be revised and clearly noted. Any revisions to the data are noted in the statistical release and in the information accompanying the StatsWales datasets.

Notes at the end of the release inform the users whether the outputs have been revised or not (denoted [r]) and give an indication of the size of the revision between the latest and previous release.

Users are informed about revisions in line with the Statement on revisions, errors and postponements.

Timeliness

Initial submission of data from local authorities to Welsh Government is expected by the end of the October following the close of the reporting year. There was a 21-month lag between the reference period of the statistics and publication of 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 data.

Punctuality

Welsh Government aims to publish statistics as soon as possible after the data reference date.

Outputs adhere to the Code of Practice for official statistics by pre-announcing the date of publication through the Statistics and research page on Upcoming releases. Furthermore, should the need arise to postpone an output this would follow the Statement on revisions, errors and postponements.

Geographical comparability

Local authorities have different data capture systems however the detailed guidance should ensure that data is inputted consistently across authorities. There are no known reasons which limit comparisons within any geographic breakdown in Wales.

All four UK nations publish data on adults receiving care and support separately. The outputs differ, reflecting the different legislation and policies, methodologies and data collection processes of the different nations. A UK Health Statistics theme group on Adult Social Care (Government Analysis Function) is in place which considers comparability and coherence of adult social care statistics. Summary information can be requested from gss.health@ons.gov.uk and more detailed work is ongoing to fully understand and describe the extent to which the nations’ statistics are comparable.

In England, the Department of Health & Social Care publish an annual Adult social care activity report.

In Scotland, data on People supported through Social Care Services is published annually by Public Health Scotland.

In Northern Ireland, Statistics on community care for adults are published by the Department of Health.

Comparability over time

Data is available from the reporting year 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024.

Coherence: internal

Data is collected from each local authority on a consistent basis and therefore comparisons between local authority areas are valid.

Publication

The statistics are pre-announced and then published at 9.30am on the date of publication on the Welsh Government website.

A report - Adults receiving care and support: 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024 - is published, providing analysis and insights using charts and commentary. Data tables for all analysis covered in the HTML report are published on StatsWales.

The data available on StatsWales can be viewed and manipulated online or downloaded into spreadsheets. Additionally, a connection can be made to the datasets from a software package (for example, Microsoft Excel) using the OData feed of the StatsWales dataset.

Online databases

The full historical series of statistics are published in the following StatsWales tables:

• Adults receiving care and support during the year by age group and gender (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support during the year with safeguarding enquiries resulting in a care and support protection plan by category of safeguarding, age group and gender (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support during the year where the care and support plan closed by reason for closure, age group and gender (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support on 31 March by age group, gender, ethnicity, and disability (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support with a disability on 31 March by type of impairment, age group and gender (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support on 31 March by place of residence, type of care and support and age group (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support on 31 March by whether they have a known carer, age group, gender, and ethnicity (StatsWales)
• Adults receiving care and support on 31 March by caring responsibilities and age group (StatsWales)

Documentation on methodology

The following sources of information are relevant to the data collection and the published statistics on adults receiving care and support:

• Social Services and Well-being (Wales) Act 2014 (UK legislation)
• Code of practice on Meeting people's care and support needs
• Local authority social services data collection

Quality documentation

All quality information is published in this quality report.

The administrative systems underpinning the data exist for operational purposes and are used for internal analysis by local authorities. Local authorities conduct validation exercises before providing the data, which leads to some resource burden. Welsh Government have been providing funding to each individual local authority to support their ability to collate and provide statutory national social services data requirements.

Confidentiality: policy

The Welsh Government’s statistics and research statement on confidentiality and data access describes our approach to data confidentiality and conforming with the data governance principle of the Trustworthiness pillar in the Code of Practice for Statistics (UK Statistics Authority).

Welsh Government hold a Data Protection Impact Assessment for this collection and a privacy notice explains how personal data collected is used.

Confidentiality: data treatment

Though person level data is collected from local authorities, data is not routinely published at this level. The dataset is aggregated to provide counts for different combinations of demographic characteristics, with totals for each demographic category also included. The published statistics on StatsWales have been rounded to the nearest five. Where there are fewer than five adults in any group, the actual number has been suppressed and replaced by the symbol [c].