Jayne Bryant, Cabinet Secretary for Housing and Local Government
I have laid a Statutory Instrument Consent Memorandum (“the memorandum”) in relation to The Legislative Reform (Disclosure of Adult Social Care Data) Order 2025 (“the Order”), laid before Parliament on 21 May 2025.
The Order makes amendments to the Public Audit (Wales) Act 2004 (“the PAWA 2004”) and equivalent UKG legislation. The purpose of the Order is to enable the recommencement of the sharing of matched adult social care data between the National Fraud Initiative (NFI) and local authorities in England and Wales for the purposes of identifying and preventing fraud and error. Amendments made by separate UK Government legislation to section 251(12A) of the National Health Service Act 2006 in 2016 had the unintended effect of preventing local authorities in Wales from being able to access the results of data matching under PAWA 2004. Data matching is done for the purpose of fraud prevention and detection and the amendments made in this Order will once again allow the NFI to share matched adult social care data with local authorities.
I have laid the memorandum in accordance with the requirement under Standing Order 30A. I consider the Order to be a relevant statutory instrument because it makes provision in relation to Wales amending primary legislation within the legislative competence of the Senedd, which is not an incidental, consequential, transitional, transitory, supplementary or savings provision relating to matters that are not within the legislative competence of the Senedd.