CQC rates Devon County Council’s adult social care provision as requires improvement

The Care Quality Commission (CQC) has rated Devon County Council as requires improvement, in how well they are meeting their responsibilities to ensure people have access to adult social care and support under the Care Act (2014).

CQC has a new duty under the Act to assess how local authorities work with their communities and partners to meet their responsibilities. This includes promoting the wellbeing and independence of working age disabled adults, older people, and their unpaid carers to reduce their need for formal support where appropriate. Where support is needed it should provide people with choice and control of how their care needs are met. CQC looked at nine areas spread across four themes to assess how well the authority is meeting their responsibilities in order to create their requires improvement rating. CQC has given each of these nine areas a score out of four with one being the evidence shows significant shortfalls, and four showing an exceptional standard.  Theme  Area  Score  How the local authority works with people  1.     assessing people’s needs  2 2.     supporting people to lead healthier lives  3 3.     equity in experience and outcomes  3 Providing support  4.     care provision, integration and continuity of care  2  5.     partnership and communities  3 How the local authority ensures safety in the system  6.     safe pathways, systems and transitions  2  7.     safeguarding  2 Leadership  8.     governance, management and sustainability  2  9.     learning, improvement and innovation  3   Mary Cridge, CQC Director of Adult Social Care and Local Authority Assessment, said: “Devon County Council serves a large, predominantly rural county with a rapidly ageing population, and the pressures this creates are reflected across its adult social care system. While we found a number of strengths, our assessment also identified areas where people’s experiences need to improve. “We saw several positive findings, underpinned by staff who demonstrated a strong commitment to supporting people effectively. Assessments were person-centred and focused on people’s goals and independence, and people’s satisfaction levels and sense of control over their daily lives were above the national average. We saw Devon’s reablement services performed particularly well, with 95.84% of people receiving short-term support no longer requiring ongoing care, compared with a national average of 79%. “However, many people were waiting too long for assessments, reviews and safeguarding responses. At the time of our assessment, 546 people were on the safeguarding waiting list, with the longest wait reaching 146 days. These delays were affecting people’s access to timely support and protection. “We also found that people from ethnic minority groups, although they made up a small number of the population, were underrepresented in referrals. Autistic people reported feeling misunderstood and experiencing poorer health outcomes, and carers, particularly those in rural areas, continued to face financial pressures, isolation and limited access to respite services. Devon has an inclusive equality action plan in place, but its impact isn’t yet being experienced consistently across all communities. “Leaders and staff at Devon County Council recognised the areas where improvement is needed and had plans in place to address these challenges. We look forward to seeing how these changes continue to develop and improve people’s experiences of care and support.” The assessment team found: The authority wasn’t completing financial assessments on time. In September 2025, 2,190 people were waiting to find out how much they would need to pay towards their care, with some waiting nearly two and a half years. The authority was providing care before completing assessments, so people did not know what their care would cost. Requests for Deprivation of Liberty safeguards were not being approved on time. Nearly 3,000 people were waiting for these reviews, with some waiting more than three and a half years. The team wasn’t putting the required legal protections in place promptly to make sure restrictions on people’s freedom were necessary. Leaders weren’t making sure information, and services were accessible to everyone. The authority hadn’t made online forms easy enough for some people with learning disabilities, hadn’t provided translation options on its website, and wasn’t providing enough support for people who could not access services online. The authority wasn’t addressing concerns raised by unpaid carers, particularly in rural areas. It hadn’t resolved problems with transport or access to breaks from caring, and it wasn’t providing enough support to improve social contact and quality of life for carers. However: Leaders embedded joint working into designing services and decision-making, ensuring people with lived experience shape services through initiatives such as jargon busters, carer ambassadors, and co-produced practice standards. The authority provided strong strategic and operational leadership, using performance data, clear accountability, and proactive risk management to drive improvement and support innovation across the sector. Leaders drove a strong culture of learning and improvement by using complaints, ombudsman findings, and reviews to strengthen practice, while investing in supervision, staff development, and consistent high-quality care. The authority has taken decisive action to improve access to support for autistic people, significantly reducing assessment waiting times through focused leadership and effective service improvement.