What we did: Between 2024 and March 2026 Alder Advice worked co-productively with three ADASS Regions to understand the main adult social care cost and activity drivers and to capture learning about how to best manage the main activity and cost drivers.

Scope: To analyse national and local data and to engage with stakeholders. Dan Short led the project and facilitated all stakeholder engagememnt activity. Dan Fisher led our analysis work.

Northwest ADASS: Oct 2024 to Jan 2025 – Analysed local and national data on how adults aged 18-64 are supported and conducted stakeholder research to understand why regional care and support costs are above average for England and why there is a wide variation across the region. Supported the region to plan how to simultaneously optimise (1) Quality of life and wellbeing outcomes for people who drawn on support and (2) Support costs.

East Midlands ADASS: Oct 2024 to Feb 2025 – Analysed local and national data and conducted stakeholder research to understand how to best support young adults aged 18-25 before and after they have entered adult services and to gain a better insight into the individuals experience, support requirements, and the regional support offer. Supported Regional action planning in response to the research findings.

East of England ADASS: April 2025 to Aug 2025 – Analysed local and national data on the number of people aged over 18 who are supported, how, at what cost, and by who? Conducted stakeholder research to understand cost and demand drivers and service quality. Facilitated regional level discussions about how to improve service quality, individual quality of life wellbeing outcomes and how to achieve financial sustainability.