Valuing Care Uplift Service – Luton Borough Council

Luton Borough Council
Working Age Adults – Residential and Supported Living

January – September 2025

Luton Borough Council engaged Valuing Care to support a transparent, evidence-based approach to uplifts across Working Age Adult residential and supported living services, with a clear focus on long-term market sustainability.

Provider letters requesting costing templates were issued in late January and early February 2025, with Valuing Care working directly with providers to support completion, resolve queries and ensure data quality.

Using the Purchaser costing software, Valuing Care collected, quality-assured and benchmarked provider cost data against locally specific, geocoded cost models. Initial uplift modelling was completed in late April 2025 and progressed through the Council’s governance processes in May and June, with ongoing provider support delivered over the summer.

A total of 400 Working Age Adult placements across residential and supported living services were reviewed. This approach enabled the Council to move away from blanket inflationary uplifts and instead apply uplifts consistently and transparently, based on evidence of the actual cost of care.

By limiting inflation where prices were already above fair cost, Luton was able to release £590k capacity within existing budgets. This capacity was not treated simply as savings, but as resources that could be redirected to support providers facing genuine sustainability pressures, strengthening market stability and targeting investment where it was most needed.

Following the success of the 2025/26 uplift review, Luton Borough Council has renewed Valuing Care’s service and commissioned a further uplift exercise commencing December 2025, embedding a repeatable, sustainable approach to market management for 2026/27.