Costs of regulating care homes for adults. Funded/commissioned by: Department of Health

<p>A key recommendation of the Burgner report on regulation and inspection of social services was that the cost of regulation<p><p>should be independently reviewed with a view to relating fee levels more closely to the actual costs of regulation (Burgner, 1996; p8). Data collected on a regular basis suggest that the current fee structure is heavily subsidised by inspecting authorities and that there is considerable variation in the degree to which fee income falls short of expenditure on regulation.

<p><p><p>In addition there are a number of important planned changes in the way that the regulatory function is to be conducted in the future (Department of Health, 1998). These include the setting up of independent regional authorities responsible for regulating care services, the extension of regulatory requirements to services not currently covered by regulatory legislation and the setting of standards at a national level. There will clearly be a need for an understanding of the costs of the current arrangements before the cost implications of any changes can be considered.

<p><p><p>This report describes the results of a Department of Health funded study of health and local authority inspection units in<p><p>England. The principal aim of the study was to establish the costs of regulating care homes for adults in a way that could be used to identify cost-based fees to homes.