Councils urge Government not to undermine effectiveness of section 75 financial arrangements

Councils have urged the Government not to make major changes to Section 75 arrangements, under which budgets are pooled to operate the Better Care Fund.

The Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC) said in a consultation earlier this year: “Arrangements to pool budgets can be complex which can hinder more ambitious models of integration.

“In the integration white paper, we committed to reviewing the legislation covering pooled budgets to consider simplifying and updating the underlying regulations where necessary.”

But in its response, the Local Government Association (LGA) said: “Section 75 financial flexibilities are not perfect but they generally work well as a vehicle for pooling shared budgets between NHS and local government commissioners.”

The DHSC had suggested that other bodies might be brought within s75 budget pooling, such as the community and voluntary sector, local Healthwatch organisations and advocacy groups.

Responding, the LGA said councils were “unlikely to want to expand section 75 arrangements for services that they have no control over, including primary care, since the contracts and specifications for such services are nationally directed”.

Local authorities viewed s75 as “simply a legal mechanism for bringing local authority and NHS financial resources into a pooled budget for a defined purpose.

“As such, it is fit for purpose. The government may risk undermining the effectiveness of section 75 financial arrangements by expanding or over-complicating them.”

Many local authority and NHS partners used s75 pooled budgets for public health services, children and young people’s services, care and support for people with learning disabilities and autism, prevention and reablement, which “demonstrates that section 75 is already used creatively in many areas”, the LGA said. 

It said there was therefore no need to widen the scope of s75 to include any additional health-related functions of local authorities and NHS bodies and “no widespread call from directors of public health to include additional public health functions”.

Mark Smulian