No implementation vehicle bridging Casey phase 1 (2026) and the final report (2028)

The Casey Commission's terms of reference confine phase 1 to existing resources and push fundamental reform to 2028. In its response to the Health and Social Care Committee's report on the cost of inaction, the government names no delivery body and no bridging fund for the interim. It points instead to existing local authority structures, Better Care Fund reform and one-off responses like the National Safeguarding Board agreed in March 2026 after Casey's interim letter. No unit is tasked or funded to implement phase 1 recommendations before the final report lands.

Phase 1 recommendations will land on a system where nobody owns them for two years. Provider exits, the deprivation-of-liberty backlog and preparation for the Fair Pay Agreement all need coordination now. The Dilnot Commission reported in 2011, and its recommendations decayed unimplemented.

A Social Care Reform Delivery Unit owned jointly by DHSC and MHCLG, working with the LGA and ADASS, formally tasked with implementing phase 1. A bridging transformation fund secured at the 2027 Spending Review would pay for the work. Casey could recommend the unit herself in the 2026 report, and DHSC could establish it administratively within months.

// State-led: Instrument: DHSC/MHCLG delivery unit established administratively plus 2027 Spending Review bridging fund; a government decision outsiders cannot ship.

Phase 1 lands in 2026 with no body and no bridging fund to own it, and Dilnot in 2011 showed how quickly unowned recommendations decay.