The LGA commissioned Alma Economics to work with councils to develop a template sufficiency statement.
In response to concerns from councils and providers about the wide variety of content published in sufficiency statements, the Local Government Association commissioned Alma Economics to work with councils to develop a template sufficiency statement to support consistency between councils. This will help councils and providers to more easily consider needs and sufficiency gaps across different council areas and therefore support with planning new provision. It also supports councils to respond to the Competition and Markets Authority finding in its report on the children’s social care market that “many local authorities and large providers expressed the need for template sufficiency strategies in England with an underlying universal approach to identifying sufficiency gaps and predicting future needs.”