We have reported before on the prevalence of short-term, one-off funding for local authorities and recommended that government explore ways to provide greater confidence over long-term funding.31 With regard to adult social care, this lack of financial certainty has constrained local authorities’ and providers’ ability to plan for the longer term, and caused investment in areas such as staff training, new accommodation and technological innovation to suffer.32 Local authorities have continued to report financial pressures and last year just under one-fifth of directors responsible for social care reported they were not confident they could meet their statutory duties for care in 2024–25.33 The Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS) reported that one-year funding settlements for local government, supplemented by short-term and targeted grant funding for adult social care, meant that the conditions and certainty have not been there for councils or providers to embark on multi-year investment programmes to fundamentally transform the services they offer.34