Our Government Transparency Campaign - in a nutshell
We have been campaigning for government transparency in social care funding for 4 years now, which means there have been many stages to the journey! We now have a date for the latest hearing which will take place on the 17th, 18th and 19th November 2025.
We have summarised the legal steps that we have taken and how Government departments and the ICO have responded in this one page document. In addition we have compiled a timeline which documents every stage of the Freedom of Information requests to date. Please click on the links to download them.
In a nutshell
✚ Access Social Care is a legal rights organisation fighting a landmark freedom of information legal case against three government departments to ensure government accountability and adequate funding for social care.
✚ Disclosure of the information requested will allow specialist social care organisations to collaborate with central government to support the improvement of long-term decision making on social care funding.
✚ Access Social Care has campaigned for 4 years for the UK government to disclose how it makes decisions on social care funding, believing that transparency is essential to create a system that works for everyone.
✚ There have been two rounds of FOI requests. One round relates to Equalities Impact information; the other relates to how Government calculates funding sufficiency for social care (the sufficiency test).
✚ Despite the Information Commissioner, and in relation to the Equalities Impact information, the First Tier Tribunal, both ordering the disclosure of information, the government continues to withhold it.
1. EQUALITIES INFORMATION
The first requests in 2021 were for ‘Equalities information’. We asked for detail as to information gathered, provided and considered for the purpose of the government’s duties under the Equality Act in spending reviews. These requests tried to get to the heart of what information the government is considering about equalities when they determine funding in the spending review – how are they ensuring that it is considered? How do they know that the money they are providing will meet their public sector equality duty?
Current status
HM Treasury, Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local government departments have applied for permission to appeal to the upper tribunal.
Permission has been refused by the First Tier Tribunal. We are waiting to hear whether Government will appeal this decision.
2. SUFFICIENCY OF FUNDING
Our second round of appeals are based on requests made about sufficiency of funding determinations by central government. We made these additional requests about a year after our first round of requests when we discovered that the government that Government Ministers made public assertions, that they were sufficiently funding adult social care.
Current status
Information Commissioner ordered disclosure of the information requested.
HM Treasury. Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local government, Department of Health and Social Care departments are all appealing this.
The hearing will be on 17th, 18th and 19th November 2025 with 1 day listed for each department to appeal.
You can follow developments in the legal case through our social channels and by signing up to our campaign newsletter here.
Read more about the campaign here
