When we asked what the Autumn Statement funding had delivered, the Department told us it had achieved “an awful lot” but acknowledged this was not as much as it had wanted and there was more to come. The Department did not quantify how much the MSIF funding had contributed to its three objectives of increased staff pay, increased fee rates paid to providers, or reduced waiting times.19 The Department told us that 85% of local authorities had said they planned to use the money on fee rates and that “a lot” of local authorities had said that average fee rates had gone up by 8.9%, noting that this was 13 Qq 22, 23 14 Qq 25–27 15 Qq 29–31 16 Letter from DHSC to Committee, 1 February 2024 17 Q 10; C&AG’s Report, para 2.7 18 C&AG’s Report, para 2.18 19 C&AG’s Report, para 2.7 12 Reforming adult social care in England above inflation. We heard that, as 70% of care provider spending goes on the workforce, this was a way of putting money into the workforce.20 Yet some care providers were more sceptical about the effectiveness of this top-up funding especially with further increases in the national living wage to come. For example, Care England reported that 84% of care providers said that government funding measures such as MSIF had had ‘no impact’ on their financial sustainability in 2023.21 Bupa Global & UK said that when engaging with local authorities it had become apparent that much of the Market Sustainability and Improvement Workforce Fund, which has similar requirements to MSIF, had been absorbed into central local authority costs, rather than being passed on to providers.22 The Local Government Association noted that much of the additional funding would go on meeting pay and inflationary pressures due to the sector’s higher exposure to costs associated with pay, energy, food and fuel prices.23