Latest update
Outcome of the assessment information
The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has today (5 June 2026) published its assessment of Somerset Council’s Adult Social Care services, giving it an overall rating of ‘Requires Improvement.’
In September 2025, the CQC looked at nine areas spread across four themes to assess how well the local authority is meeting their responsibilities to decide this requires improvement rating.
These themes are:
- How the local authority works with people
- Providing support
- How the local authority ensures safety in the system
- Leadership
Our response
While we are disappointed with the overall rating, the assessment highlights both:
- Strengths in our system, including partnership working and the commitment of our workforce
- Areas where improvement is needed, particularly to ensure consistency of experience and outcomes
Since our assessment in September, we have continued to make significant progress across the areas identified, which include timeliness of assessments and reviews, support for unpaid carers, and how the council uses data to drive improvement.
Some of these improvements include:
- Commissioned a twenty-four-hour self-service tool via our partner, Thrive, that helps carers find local support and carers’ groups quickly.
- Put an oversight group in place reviewing the timeliness of assessments and reviews, we are starting to see movement in the length of longest delay, whilst prioritising those at greatest need.
- Using data to track trends and target resource; this is clear when we look at supporting people using self-directed and direct payments is above the England average. *
*(Self-Directed Support – Somerset = 98.3%, Southwest average = 85.8%, England average = 82.4%. Direct Payments – Somerset = 35.4%, Southwest average = 23.5%, England average = 24.5%).
These changes are already having a positive impact in many areas and provide a strong foundation for further improvement.
Areas we are focusing on next
We recognise there is more to do, particularly to ensure:
- Consistent experiences and outcomes for people across all pathways
- Continued reduction in delays and waiting times
- Strengthened support for unpaid carers
- Greater consistency in practice and decision-making
- Stronger use of data and insight to drive improvement
Key next steps
- Delivering a clear and focused improvement plan
- Continuing joint work with partners and providers
- Embedding co-production in service design and delivery
- Sharing progress regularly through existing partnerships and forums
We will ensure that you, our stakeholders, are kept regularly informed, involved in shaping solutions and supported to contribute to improvement activity where appropriate.
We recognise and thank you for your continued commitment to supporting people across Somerset.
David Coleman-Groom
Executive Director for Adult Social Care and Housing
Somerset Council
On-site visit
The on-site visit by the Assessment Team took place from Tuesday 23 to Thursday 25 September 2025. During their time with us, the assessors met with leaders, front-line staff, people using services, unpaid carers, voluntary and community groups, and care providers. We are now working on populating the timetable and will be able to share that in due course.
Ahead of the visit, we also held a separate online session on Friday 12 September 2025 to share our data and performance framework, helping the team understand how we are meeting our duties under Part 1 of the Care Act.
Introducing Somerset Council to the CQC Team
On 2 September 2025, Somerset Council’s Adult Social Care Leadership Team was invited to deliver an introductory presentation to the CQC Assessment Team. The CQC Assessment Team includes:
- Assessment Manager – Laura Cresser
- Lead Inspector – Jez Hunt
- Lead Inspector (Support) – Matthew Atkinson
- Executive Reviewer – Jonathan Griffiths
- Specialist Advisor – Claire Migale
We are very proud of our partnerships and collaborative approach in Somerset, so we invited some of our partners and commissioned providers to prepare and deliver the presentation with us. This included people with lived experience and members of our Working Together Board. Within the presentation we included the following:
- Welcome to Somerset
- Our new council
- Our vibrant communities
- Our early help and prevention offer
- Quality assurance
- Our partnerships and how we design creative solutions
Previous update
On Monday 7 April 2025, Somerset Council received notification from the Care Quality Commission (CQC) that they will be assessing Somerset Council’s effectiveness at how we meet our duties under Part 1 of the Care Act 2014.
The CQC assessment process is an opportunity for us to showcase the impactful and innovative work happening across Somerset, and the difference we make in partnership to people’s lives and local communities. It will also be a chance for us to demonstrate the work we are doing to respond to challenges and continuously improve.
Each assessment starts with a request for an information return to support the CQC assessment team in gaining valuable insights into how we are delivering our adult social care functions and to help target future on-site activity.
On Friday 2 May 2025 we submitted our Information Return and Self-Assessment to the CQC . This work was overseen by our Adult Social Care Directors and supported by our Policy, Performance and Assurance Team. Many of our staff and partners would have contributed towards the gathering of evidence for this return and we’d like to thank everyone for their support in this process.
We know that the CQC will also reach out to our colleagues and key partners – including through a survey of local care providers and via contact with some colleagues working across our voluntary and community sector – to gather and evaluate people’s experience of local support and provision. Thank you in advance for your contribution to this activity.
On Monday 21 July, Somerset Council received news from the CQC that they will be coming on site during the week of 22 September. This will be the final part of the assessment process, which began with the submission of our self-assessment in May 2025. Following the assessment, the CQC will produce an assessment report including an overall rating.
Regular updates on latest developments will be provided here and we will ensure that everyone is kept informed as work progresses.
Our Adult Social Care Policy, Performance and Assurance Team is responsible for supporting our CQC assessment here in Somerset. Should you have any queries, please direct these to our team mailbox and we will be happy to assist: ASCInspectionSupport@somerset.gov.uk
