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Accelerating Reform Fund

The Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) aims to boost the quality and accessibility of adult social care by supporting innovation and scaling, and kickstarting a change in services to support unpaid carers. SCIE is providing hands-on support to all projects involved.

Last updated: 23 September 2024

About the fund

The Accelerating Reform Fund (ARF) focuses on embedding and scaling approaches to transform care and support including for unpaid carers, who play such a vital, selfless role in our society.

There are a total of 122 innovative projects receiving funding, across 42 Integrated Care Systems (ICS).

View a complete list of the ARF project descriptions and locations.

The ARF is supporting a minimum of two projects per region, of which at least one focuses on unpaid carers. As part of these projects, local authorities are expected to work in partnership with others, including care providers, the NHS, the voluntary and community sectors, people who draw on care and support and unpaid carers.

We hope the ARF will help accelerate progress towards a future where people have choice, control and support to live independent lives, and where care and support is of outstanding quality and provided in a fair, accessible way.

Our involvement

SCIE is the official hands-on support provider to the ARF. We are working with all ARF projects to transform care by helping to identify issues and challenges, galvanising co-production and ensuring people who need care and unpaid carers are at the heart of every ARF project. 

The ARF is a learning programme, so we have an essential role in gathering evidence to understand how to successfully tackle the barriers to scaling up innovation in social care, alongside the Fund’s national evaluation partner, Ipsos.

To help shape the support we are providing to ARF project teams, we have published an analysis of the projects that identifies key themes and priorities. We are also committed to a regular programme of online events and learning workshops in response to feedback and common challenges. Anyone can access the presentations and learnings from these events on our website.

Our support is helping local areas develop robust project governance arrangements, define clear deliverables and milestones, and share learnings and insights.

Funding allocations and SCIE’s analysis

The DHSC published final ICS funding allocations in March 2024. The first £20 million funding allocation was released to the lead local authority for each consortium.

Alongside this announcement, SCIE published a summary analysis of the local ARF projects. This includes the make-up of local authority consortia and partnerships, the nature of each project, diversity of providers, and identification of initiatives supporting unpaid carers. In this analysis, we established that projects fall into one of eight clear themes:

Other projects that support adults and/or the workforce.

  • Hospital discharge
  • Digital tools for self-care
  • Shared living arrangements
  • Community networks and development
  • Assessment of needs, carers assessments and carers identification
  • Information, advice and guidance, and service directories
  • Other projects that support carers, and
  • Other projects that support adults and/or the workforce.

What happens next?

Following a series of online support sessions and learning workshops earlier this year, we are now developing a programme of further learning to support all ARF projects. You can view these recordings on our online sessions page.

ARF online sessions

Frequently Asked Questions

General

SCIE support

Local responsibilities/working together

Evaluation

Funding

Accelerating Reform Fund: Frequently Asked Questions

Contact us

If you have questions about SCIE’s support as part of the Accelerating Reform Fund programme, please email us.