How would national eligibility criteria for disabled children’s social care help families?

3 mins read

Tuesday 14 October 2025

This news story applies in England only.

Have you been turned down for social care support because your child has the “wrong kind of disability”?

Or did your child loose vital care hours when you moved to a different local authority area?

The Law Commission’s recent report recommending radical reform of children’s social care highlighted this postcode lottery and how it leads to unfairness due to wide variations in support families receive around the country.

What is the current situation?

Currently local authorities can “devise their own eligibility criteria” depending on the financial resources they have. This is in stark contrast with adult social care, where local authorities must follow national eligibility criteria.

One parent in our social care focus group turned down for support told us that their local authority tightened the criteria after the family lodged a complaint. Others were told their child needed to have more than one disability to qualify for support.

The Law Commission’s own research involving 104 local authorities found 14 had no publicly available eligibility criteria. Of the remaining 90 local authorities, “no two sets of criteria were the same”. Others had potentially discriminatory criteria that excluded children with specific conditions or disabilities like autism.

What does the Law Commission recommend?

The Law Commission report recommends that the government:

  • Reforms the law to create a single duty to meet the social care needs of disabled children, subject to national eligibility criteria.
  • Does further work to evaluate the likely impact of the eligibility criteria and what the criteria should be.
  • Involve authorities,  families of disabled children and those representing their interests.
  • Publishes new statutory guidance as an interim while the work is carried out, which states that local authorities must “have regard to” when drafting their own local criteria.

We believe families should be central to any work carried out to agree eligibility criteria for disabled children’s social care and when developing new statutory guidance. This work needs to start now.

What happens next?

The government has until March 2026 to provide an initial response to the Law Commission recommendations and a further six months to provide a detailed response.

Contact has welcomed all 42 of the Law Commission’s recommendations.

We are urging parents to help us Spark a Fairer future for disabled children.

Email your MP to ask them write to the Minister for Children and Families insisting he accepts the Law Commission’s recommendations in full and without delay.

What else does the Law Commission recommend?

The Law Commission recommends: