Last Updated on September 23, 2025
The Department of Health and Social Care has published a Foundational Specification for adult social care case management system procurement.
Working with public sector consultancy, BetterGov, the Specification has been designed after a multi-stage consultation process with a variety of stakeholders. These include representatives from local authorities across the country, existing and prospective system suppliers and organisations including Department for Education, Crown Commercial Service, Care Quality Commission, Partners in Care and Health, Association of Directors of Adult Social Services and Client Level Data.
The Foundational Specification has been designed to simplify the procurement process for local authorities by providing a standardised specification - with the intention of saving time and reducing costs and resources when procuring a new case management system. In addition, this guidance will aim to promote improved functionality, greater data-sharing and potential economies of scale.
Throughout the project, open and continuous engagement with stakeholders was maintained to ensure that the final Specification was firmly grounded in the real needs and priorities of its users. This engagement began with one-to-one discussions involving a broad range of local authorities, aimed at understanding the challenges and aspirations of those working with case management systems.
It was followed by a nationwide survey distributed to all English authorities, and a series of in-depth workshops focused on different aspects of the Specification. These workshops, attended by representatives from over two dozen local authorities, provided invaluable insights and enabled an unprecedented level of contribution from practitioners, directly shaping the content and structure of the final Specification.
Commenting on the publication of the Foundational Specification, Alasdair Bowen, Business Systems Manager - Adult Social Care at the Royal Borough of Kingston, said, 'The BetterGov workshops were well-designed to address each of the elements of system design in the right order and gave a really great opportunity to share thoughts and ideas openly with other colleagues from around the country.'
The final product is available here for any local authority and case management system supplier in the UK to use as a guide.
In other news, the Care Workers’ Charity (CWC) has celebrated a major milestone, hosted at a House of Lords reception to mark the occasion.