Jurisdiction(s):
United Kingdom

Related legal acts

Key definition

Local authority definition

What does Local authority mean? In legal practice, a local authority is the elected council that provides local government for a defined area, exercising statutory functions including planning, housing, social care, education, highways, environmental health, licensing, and the collection of council tax or rates. The expression appears widely in legislation and case law; its precise scope is set by the relevant statute. England: county councils and district councils (including metropolitan boroughs), unitary authorities, London Boroughs and the Common Council of the City of London; parish and town councils are local authorities at the most local tier. Wales: unitary county and county borough councils. Scotland: the...

Care Act 2014 Part 1: Local authority adult social care duties, commissioning, market shaping, assessment and funding (England)

Published by a LexisNexis Local Government expert

Practice notes

Interpreting the social care framework in Part 1

This Practice Note explains the framework governing local authority responsibilities for arranging and funding social care in England as established by the Care Act 2014 (CA 2014). It addresses the overarching duties that significantly shape local authorities’ wider obligations regarding the commissioning of health and social care services.

CA 2014, Pt 1 delineates the scheme of local authority duties for the organisation and financing of social care. It sets out a series of general duties that materially influence local authorities’ broader obligations concerning the commissioning of health and social care provision. Those overarching duties markedly affect authorities’ overall obligations for commissioning health and social care.

This Practice Note concentrates on the principal requirements of CA 2014, Pt 1.

For the purposes of this Practice Note, ‘local authority’ denotes a county council in England, a district council for an area in England without a county council, a London borough council, or the Common Council of the City of London.

Part 1 CA 2014 establishes the framework of duties placed on local authorities in relation to the provision of social care...

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Stephanie Townley

Addleshaw Goddard

Stephanie is an experienced senior member of the IPE team at Addleshaws. She specialises in complex public private procurements, advising both the public and private sector, in relation to health care, social housing, street lighting, schools and outsourcing. Recently she has acted on a range of matters relating to operational PFI projects including a number of variations, disputes and associated settlement agreements. Stephanie has advised on a wide range of projects with a variety of structures from joint ventures, LLPs and LEPs to PFIs and straight outsourcing arrangements advising clients in respect of the initial tender process including procurement issues through to reaching financial close and further in respect of operational matters post-close. ...

Anna Sweeney

Addleshaw Goddard

Anna began her career as a Commercial solicitor at Eversheds and has been a professional support lawyer/knowledge lawyer since 2007. She supports the Addleshaw Goddard Infrastructure Projects & Energy (IPE) team and is also the sector knowledge lawyer for the Energy and Transport sectors at AG. She has extensive knowledge of energy regulation and keeps the team abreast of legal and market developments in this fast-moving sector. She writes regular client updates on energy, transport and infrastructure developments....

Web page updated on 21/05/2026

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