The CQC has begun a 19-week assessment of Barnet's adult social care. Council papers also show 138 complaints, two care homes closing and staffing risks.
The Care Quality Commission has started a full assessment of how Barnet Council runs adult social care. The regulator notified the council on 28 September.
That date is in a performance report prepared for the council’s Adults and Health Overview and Scrutiny Sub-Committee, which was due to meet at 7pm on Wednesday 4 November.
The process is expected to take about 19 weeks. Counted from the notification, that would reach early February 2027. The council has to submit a large return of information, and there will be a two-week visit:
- Week one: online interviews, carried out off-site
- Week two: assessors on site, holding in-person interviews and sampling residents’ experiences
The report gives no date for the visit. It is part of the second round of council assessments under the Health and Care Act 2022.
138 complaints, and where they fell
The same agenda carries the annual complaints report for 2025/26. Adult social care received 138 statutory complaints and 116 formal compliments. The council says that is a small share of its work, with more than 7,400 new requests for support and 5,729 people receiving long-term services.
Of the 138 complaints, 19 were withdrawn. The other 119 ended like this:
- 23 upheld
- 40 partly upheld
- 56 not upheld
Three things stand out in the detail:
- Care charges and billing drew the most complaints. Customer Financial Affairs had 30, up from 9 in 2021/22. Six of the eight about quality of service were upheld or partly upheld, and the report links those to problems with the council’s Oracle Cloud system.
- Delay complaints usually succeed. There were only 11, but 10 were upheld or partly upheld. Waiting times for care assessments and financial reviews were the main cause.
- Learning disability complaints were often upheld. Of 15, seven were upheld and four partly upheld.
The Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman received 15 complaints and enquiries, down from 21. It considered eight and upheld five. The report says the council carried out its recommendations in all five.
Care homes closing and staff shortages
The council’s risk register, as at the end of the first quarter of 2026/27, rates four adult social care risks at 16: care provider failure, workforce instability, delays in assessment, and the NHS restructure. Rising care debt is rated 15.
On care providers, the report says:
- two care homes are being closed, with residents moved
- one supported living service has moved to a new provider
- one provider went into compulsory liquidation, affecting five Barnet residents in supported living at three addresses in Brent
- three providers, across several schemes, are subject to provider concerns
The report names none of them. It says disruption to the five residents was limited, because a new provider was quickly brought in.
On staffing, it describes struggling to attract high quality staff, even through agencies. Three agency workers were recently let go because of the quality of their work.
How Barnet scores
Draft national figures for 2025/26 put 9 of Barnet’s 27 social care indicators in the top quarter nationally and 4 in the bottom quarter. These remain draft until the government publishes them, and the comparisons use the previous year’s averages.
Almost 70% of people were still at home 91 days after leaving hospital, which the council says is in the top quarter.
The four bottom-quarter scores are all about people’s experience:
| Measure | Barnet | England average |
|---|---|---|
| Carers extremely or very satisfied with social services | 31.3% | 36.7% |
| Users extremely or very satisfied with care and support | 61.5% | 65.1% |
| Users who feel in control of their daily life | 71.8% | 77.3% |
| Carers’ quality of life score | 6.9 | 7.3 |
These come from surveys. The council had 330 replies from 1,499 questionnaires sent to users of care, and 219 from 917 sent to carers.
What it means for you
If you or a relative has care through Barnet, the assessors will be sampling residents’ experiences during their visit. The report does not say how people will be chosen.
If you have a complaint, it goes to the council first through its comments and complaints page. You can then take it to the Ombudsman. The Ombudsman will generally send a complaint back if the council has not yet looked at it.
The sub-committee was asked to note the complaints report and approve it for publication. We will report anything further once the minutes are published.
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