麻豆精选

ASSURE: understanding the impact of CQC assurance on local authorities

The ASSURE project explores  (CQC) assurance of local authorities. It is funded by the National Institute for Health and Care Research’s School for Social Care Research. Led by Professor Catherine Needham and Dr Emily Burn, University 麻豆精选, the project is considering whether CQC assurance is the right process to assess local authorities’ discharge of Care Act duties. Exploring changes made in practice due to CQC assurance, we are also reflecting on how assurance is impacting local authority practitioners’ engagement with local social care systems. 

Running from May 2025-April 2027, the ASSURE project looks to understand and influence improvements to the assurance process. Also on the project team are Ceri Davies BEM, Pete Jackson from West Midland Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and Christina Harwood from the North West Association of Directors of Adult Social Services.

During the project we are talking to people involved in designing the new assurance process and analysing documents on local authority assurance. We are working in four local authority case sites where local authorities have been through the CQC assurance process. We are exploring the influence of assurance on what local authorities do and how assurance has affected the local care system. To do this, we are talking to staff, looking at meeting papers and observing meetings that are publicly available. We are interested in how local authority assurance brings in the lived experience of people drawing on care and we are talking to local user-led organisations about their involvement with the assurance process.