Last year we argued that adult social care's real problem wasn't just money. It was visibility: councils making funding decisions without a clear view of where pressure was building, what was driving it or where action would have the greatest effect.

The 2026 ADASS Spring Survey reinforces that argument, but it also takes it further. The issue is no longer simply whether councils can see individual pressures. It is whether they can connect the signals across demand, complexity, prevention, commissioning and cost – and understand the wider story they tell.

Taken together, the findings point to a sector that does not lack commitment, ideas or evidence. What it often lacks is the ability to turn fragmented information into a sufficiently clear view of where to act first. That is becoming one of the defining strategic challenges for adult social care leaders.

Prevention is losing the argument it should be winning

Councils are now spending just 5% of their adult social care budget on prevention services, the lowest proportion since ADASS began collecting this data. Confidence in meeting statutory prevention and wellbeing duties has fallen again, from 25% to 20%.

This isn't a failure of belief. Every Director in this survey would tell you prevention matters. It's a failure of room to manoeuvre. When councils are trying to deliver £909 million of savings while carrying a £715 million overspend, prevention is often the easiest budget line to defer. Not because it matters least, but because its benefits are realised over years rather than months.

Importantly, the ADASS findings don't stand alone. CQC reached the same conclusion from a different perspective, published in their first thematic report on local authority assessments this July.  Where prevention is weak, the consequences are rarely confined to prevention itself. They become visible in safeguarding, transitions, unpaid carer support, and wider system resilience. Two national bodies, measuring different things, are pointing towards the same conclusion. Prevention is no longer simply a policy ambition. It's becoming one of the strongest indicators of how resilient a local adult social care system is.

The challenge now isn’t making the case for prevention – the case has already been made. The challenge is understanding where prevention investment will have greatest impact. That requires councils to connect information about demand, complexity, outcomes, and cost, rather than viewing each in isolation. Better prevention starts with better understanding.

Complexity is becoming measurable, and that changes the conversation

For the first time, this survey lets us see complexity rather than just hear about it. Double-handed care among over-65s has jumped from 13.6% to 20.3% in a single year. Homecare hours are climbing. Care packages are becoming increasingly complex, and growing fastest for working-age adults.

That matters because complexity doesn't just increase demand – it changes the type of support people need, the skills required to deliver it, and the resources councils must plan for.

The opportunity is that complexity no longer has to be understood one assessment at a time. When councils can identify patterns across populations, localities, and service types, they are better placed to anticipate future demand, target preventative support, and plan services with greater confidence.

On its own, complexity is another statistic. Combined with information about prevention, commissioning and outcomes, it becomes a much stronger guide to where action is likely to have the greatest impact.

The variation is the story, not the exception

One of the most significant findings from CQC's first national assessment was the stark variation in commissioning and co-production across councils, and no consistent national standard for what people should be able to expect wherever they live.

Perhaps the most striking finding was that there was no meaningful relationship between deprivation and overall assessment outcomes. The councils performing most strongly are demonstrating consistently effective leadership, commissioning, prevention, and partnership working. In other words, good adult social care isn't defined by one measure – it's the result of multiple parts of the system working well together.

That's encouraging because it means improvement isn't theoretical – it's already happening. The challenge isn't proving that better outcomes are possible, but understanding what high-performing councils are doing differently and how those lessons can be applied elsewhere.

The opportunity isn't simply to compare performance. It's to understand the relationship between practice, prevention, commissioning and outcomes, and use that understanding to drive improvement.

The question is no longer whether good adult social care exists – we know that it does. The question is how consistently we can recognise it, measure it, and learn from it.

Confidence in commissioning for working-age adults is close to breaking

Just 27% of Directors are fully confident they can meet residential care needs for working-age adults over the next three years, down from 35% now. For nursing care, confidence falls from 38% to 25%, and for community-based provision, from 55% to 39%. Read together, these figures suggest something beyond low confidence: growing uncertainty about whether current commissioning models can keep pace with changing need.

Support for working-age adults is one of the fastest-growing areas of financial pressure in adult social care. As needs become more complex and support packages more individualised, commissioning decisions become harder, markets become more fragile and long-term planning becomes more important.

This is another reminder that understanding today's demand is no longer enough. Councils also need confidence that they can anticipate how demand will change tomorrow - and whether current services are likely to meet it.

What we can't fix, and what we can

Not every pressure highlighted in this year’s survey sits within the control of adult social care. ICB disinvestment in Continuing Healthcare is now cited by 84% of Directors as a contributor to their overspend risk. Mental health need is rising sharply while joint funding for it is, in a meaningful proportion of areas, going the other way.

We're not going to pretend a toolkit built for adult social care can solve a funding dispute between the NHS and local government. It can't, and claiming otherwise would insult the intelligence of the people reading this.

What technology can do is strengthen the evidence behind the decisions councils are already making. Whether the conversation is about Continuing Healthcare, prevention, commissioning, or future demand, better evidence leads to stronger conversations with partners, greater confidence in decision-making, and a clearer understanding of where pressure is genuinely building.

Better insight won't resolve every funding challenge. But it does make those challenges easier to understand, easier to explain, and ultimately easier to respond to.

ADASS's own recommendation is that CHC shouldn't be used as a routine savings mechanism. That argument becomes much stronger when supported by clear, consistent data on how much cost is shifting, from where, and onto whom. Evidence doesn't resolve who pays. But it makes it a great deal harder for that question to be settled without a shared understanding of where pressure is actually occurring.

Where that leaves councils

Adult social care isn't short of evidence. Every year, national surveys, local performance measures, and regulatory assessments provide another layer of understanding about the pressures facing services. The challenge is turning that information into the confidence to act.

The ADASS Spring Survey doesn't just tell us demand is rising or budgets are under pressure. It reinforces something equally important: the councils best placed to respond are those that can connect information about demand, practice, prevention, commissioning, and outcomes to understand where action will make the greatest difference.

Change is moving faster than it has in years, a new Prime Minister, a health secretary with a clear mandate, an accelerated Casey timeline. But faster is not the same as immediate. This survey is a reminder of why between now and whatever comes next, councils still need to make difficult decisions every day. Better evidence won't remove those decisions, but it can make them more informed, more transparent, and ultimately more confident.

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