Policy Research Programme - (36-01-07) Evaluation of the Better Care Fund

Timetable and Budget

Description	Deadline/Limit
Deadline for Stage 1 Applications	11 July 2023, 1 PM
Notification of outcome of Stage 1 Application	October 2023
Deadline for Stage 2 application	28 November 2023, 1 PM
Notification of outcome of Stage 2 Application	April-May 2024
Project Start	within 2 months of outcome notification (subject to pre-contract negotiations)
Project Duration	18- 24 Months
Budget	£600,000 to £800,000

Introduction 

The National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Policy Research Programme (PRP) invites applications for a single research project that will evaluate the Better Care Fund (BCF). 

The study presents an opportunity to directly inform national policy and local service delivery across an important area of the health and care system in England, with a specific focus on assessing how integration is supporting person-centred care, sustainability and better outcomes for people and carers.

Background 

The Better Care Fund 

The BCF is one of the Government’s national vehicles for driving health and social care integration to support better outcomes for people and carers. It represents a unique collaboration between the Department of Health and Social Care (DHSC), Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC), NHS England and the Local Government Association (LGA), who work closely together to help local areas plan and implement integrated health and social care services across England.

 The BCF sets out to deliver against 2 main policy objectives:

• Enabling people to stay well, safe and independent at home for longer (this tends to focus on how local areas invest in services to prevent people’s health and care needs escalating, allowing people to live more independently and healthily for longer)
• Provide the right care in the right place at the right time (this tends to focus on ensuring effective flow of individuals/patients across and between systems and services – with a particular emphasis on ensuring individuals are discharged from hospital in a timely and supportive fashion).

The BCF requires integrated care boards (ICBs) and local governments to agree to a joint plan, owned by the health and wellbeing board (HWB). These are joint plans for using pooled budgets to support integration and provide a context in which they can work together, as partners, towards shared objectives that is governed by an agreement under section 75 of the NHS Act (2006). The pooled budget is a combination of contributions from the NHS and local authorities:

• NHS Funding: a minimum allocation from NHS ICBs.
• Two local authority grants: Disabled Facilities Grant (DFG) and the improved Better Care Fund (‘iBCF’- a core social care funding grant for LAs).

The government sets minimum funding allocations that must be pooled into each area’s BCF plan, and areas are able to add additional funding. Spending plans are intended to support integrated care, but the programme also mandates minimum levels of financial support from the NHS for social care. For 2023-25, the Government has committed at least £16.8 billion to the BCF, which includes an extra £1.6 billion to support safe and timely discharge from hospital. 

A BCF framework outlines the agreed way in which the BCF will be implemented and provides the parameters of the Fund for the year ahead, including details on funding, national conditions, and metrics for the BCF. The set conditions that local areas must meet to receive BCF funding include:

• Creating a jointly agreed plan between local health and social care commissioners and signed off by the Health and Wellbeing Board (HWB)
• Including an NHS contribution to adult social care which needs to be maintained in line with the uplift to the NHS minimum contribution
• Investing in NHS commissioned out-of-hospital services?

Within these national conditions, local areas have flexibility to spend BCF money on services most suitable to their local populations. Much of BCF spend goes on services at the interface of the health and social care system such as intermediate care (e.g., reablement services), and hospital discharge planning, as well as core adult social care services.There is an expectation that local areas provide their spending plans for 2023-25 by June 2023 (additional information on what local areas plans tend to include can be found in Annex A).  

Specific performance metrics are also set, and each area must agree ambitions for improving performance against these metrics. They are selected based on their relevance to integrated care, and to the fund’s objectives. The BCF metrics for 23/24 are:

• Avoidable admissions to hospital
• Emergency hospital admissions due to falls in people over 65
• Admissions to residential and care homes
• Effectiveness of reablement
•  Hospital discharges that are to the person’s usual place of residence

The Better Care Fund Support Programme 

The BCF Support Programme has been externally commissioned by DHSC since 2019/20 to provide oversight for the BCF programme and to ensure that local areas have the right support available to them as they work towards delivering their BCF plans and improving integration between health, housing, and social care services.

The Support Programme offers a comprehensive BCF programme of Health, Housing and Social Care integration support tailored to the diverse range of local system needs and is designed to help systems deliver person-centred integrated services (including support on issues relating to behaviour and culture change, since these are often the key barriers to implementing and sustaining change). The Programme aims to add value by helping local areas to sustain positive changes to improve person centred integrated services, with a corresponding positive impact on service user outcomes and experience.

The Programme provides a broad range of support for local systems - both technical (e.g., modelling) and non-technical (e.g., facilitation support to help navigate difficult conversations and improve collaboration to bring about more joined up working). The Programme is demand-led and is not a mandatory requirement of local systems.

The current Programme, delivered by the LGA in partnership with ADASS and Newton Europe, has a two-year funding arrangement in place (from Q3 of 2022-23), with a budget to develop an expanded and re-designed externally commissioned support service. The Programme has a phased approach to its delivery. Phase 1 started in March 2023, which seeks to prioritise discharge-related support requests and any urgent non-discharge support (including prevention and admission avoidance activities). Phase 2 (anticipated to commence in May/June 2023) will also include non-discharge support requests and a proactive, targeted offer of support to systems where it is felt support is needed.

The Need For Research 

In 2018, the NIHR Policy Research Unit on Quality and Outcomes of Person-Centred Care (QORU) carried out a System-Level Evaluation of the Better Care Fund. This evaluation demonstrated the impact of the BCF on identified outcomes (delayed transfers of care and non-elective emergency admissions) and provided detail of how the BCF functions support integration, leading to consideration of options for reform of the BCF and an internal review to support improvements in the design and running of the fund.

Since this study, the BCF has matured and there have been wide ranging policy and contextual developments that have changed the health and social care landscape. This includes legislative changes in the Health and Social Care Bill, the establishment of ICBs, the potential for increased integrated working because of the COVID-19 response, and the publication of the adult social care reform and health and social care integration white papers.  

The proposed evaluation is intended to build upon the current evidence base of the effectiveness of the BCF since the previous NIHR PRP-funded research. However, this evaluation should extend into new research areas. The purpose of this research is to:

• Contribute to developing an independent and robust evidence base on national and local efforts to deliver integrated care through the BCF in England
• Support Ministers and policymakers in understanding how the system is evolving following recent legislative changes, and inform future policy development
• Understand how the Support Programme, contributes to meeting the BCF’s overarching objectives

We anticipate this will require a number of evaluative approaches. This includes an evaluation of the benefits, impacts and outcomes at a service user and system level. It will also be important that the study includes formative / process elements focused on BCF implementation and delivery within the context of recent system reforms. This will establish a robust understanding of the effectiveness of integrated and cross-sectoral collaborative ways of working between health and social care. Within this, we are interested in identifying the key enablers and barriers encountered, and to understand how they are overcome.

Priority Policy Questions 

The study will help support national decisions that aim to maximise the successful delivery of integrated health and social care through the BCF. For example, it is expected that the evaluation will provide a robust evidence base to inform future funding decisions (e.g. information on the benefits, impacts, outcomes, and value for money) and offer recommendations for future policy development and fund design.

Given this, we expect the evaluation to address four high level research questions that are of particular interest to DHSC and its partners: 

1. What longitudinal impact has the BCF had on its system-level outcomes (e.g. from 2017 onwards)?
2. What impact has the BCF had on wider health and care outcomes (e.g., quality of life)?
3. How have the structures and conditions of the BCF (a) driven integration and (b) impacted system-level outcomes and wider health and care outcomes?
4. What impact has the Support Programme had on BCF system-level outcome measures?

We welcome comments and feedback from applicants on these high-level questions and are open to suggestions for additional topics / questions for inclusion in the study that directly address the policy priorities set out in this specification. The evaluation is expected to be designed and delivered in a way that provides structured opportunities for dynamic evaluative feedback to the DHSC and its partners. 

It should be noted that:

• Interim findings are required in January 2025 to feed into the development of the 2025/26 BCF Policy Framework. The research questions that should be prioritised for the development of the 2025/26 BCF Policy Framework are 1) and 3) as listed above.

• Final (or near final) results are required in January 2026 to inform policy and operational decisions after the publication of 2025/26 Framework. 

Technical Requirements

This evaluation should be viewed as a programme of research. Researchers may approach the requirements by designing a series of mixed methods work packages and/or linked projects that specifically address the aims and objectives of this research, as well as the priority policy research questions.

We are conscious of the complexity of the BCF, and the ambitious policy research questions we have set out for this study. We have developed some initial suggestions for how the applicants might wish to approach this evaluation (see Annex A and B for further details). This is neither definitive nor exhaustive. Our aim in doing so is to provide some examples for applicants to consider, while also underscoring what we see as our primary evidence needs at this point. 

As is standard for NIHR PRP calls, applicants are required to suggest an approach which they judge as being best suited to addressing the requirements of this evaluation. This should include full methodological details of their proposals, along with a clear rationale. 

Expertise required

Applicants should be able to demonstrate the following:  

• Strong understanding of the social care sector in England  
• Expertise in conducting complex evaluations of national policy programmes  
• Expertise in conducting quantitative and qualitative research and analysis  
• Expertise in impact evaluation, particularly econometric approaches to identifying impact in panel data (e.g., difference in differences, synthetic control)

Applicants may wish to engage with the NIHR Research Support Service (RSS). The RSS provides free and confidential advice on research design, writing funding applications and public involvement, to health and social care researchers across England (this was previously supported by the Research Design Service).

Budget and duration 

Costings can include up to 100% full economic costing (FEC) but should exclude output VAT. Applicants are advised that value for money is one of the key criteria that peer reviewers and commissioning panel members will assess applications against.

It is anticipated that this evaluation will be delivered within a cost of up to £400,000 - £600,000. Applicants are asked to describe the work anticipated within the evaluation in detail, providing an accurate estimate of the cost for its delivery. This figure should be entered in the application as the estimated research cost. 

The evaluation is expected to be conducted over an 18-24 month period.

Management arrangements and outputs

Research contractors will be expected to work with nominated officials in DHSC, its partners and the NIHR. Key documents including, for example, research protocols, research instruments, reports and publications must be provided to DHSC in draft form allowing sufficient time for review.

Regular meetings will be required throughout the duration of the evaluation to provide DHSC officials with updates from the research and provide any interim outputs.

A research advisory group should be established by the successful applicants to oversee the study through to completion.  This will include representatives of DHSC and other partners - e.g. NHS England, the Department for Levelling Up, Housing & Communities (DLUHC), the Local Government Association (LGA) and the Association of Directors of Adult Social Services (ADASS). The advisory group will provide guidance, meeting regularly over the lifetime of the research. The successful applicants should be prepared to review research objectives with the advisory group, and to share emerging findings on an ongoing basis. They will be expected to:

1. Provide regular feedback on progress

2. Produce timely reports to the advisory group

3. Produce a final report for sign off

A meeting to discuss policy needs and project timetables with DHSC officials and partners will be convened as a matter of priority following contracting.

Applicants are asked to consider the timing and nature of deliverables in their proposals. Policymakers will need research evidence to meet key policy decisions and timescales, so the available resource needs to be flexible to meet these needs.

We will require synthesised final outputs from all elements of the study, including:

• an end of evaluation briefing / workshop, suitable for technical and non-technical audiences
• a final project report - consideration should be given as to how best to communicate with technical and non-technical audiences

In addition, we have set out some illustrative examples of the possible project outputs in Annex C.  Our aim in doing so is to highlight what we currently see as our evidence needs, and how we envisage outputs will support policy decisions. We welcome comments from applicants on these examples, including additional suggestions for additional outputs which may be beneficial. 

New Guidance on Health Inequalities data collection within NIHR PRP Research

Inequities and inequalities in the provision, access to and experience of health and care services is a high priority area within the Department of Health and Social Care and the NIHR and is present in the majority of funded projects. We are now assessing all NIHR research proposals in relation to health and care inequalities. NIHR asks researchers to explore issues of inequality and inequity in the research being proposed. 

Our goal is also to facilitate more widespread and consistent reporting of data on health and care inequalities relating to the primary outcomes of NIHR funded research. Applicants should, if feasible, collect or analyse data related to health and/or care inequalities, we request that this stated in the proposal. This is a new request from the NIHR PRP and we will be continuing to monitor queries and make any necessary clarifications, as needed.

We understand that research projects may employ different methodologies, and focus on different populations. We ask that you please clearly identify in the research plan section of the application whether your application has a health and care inequalities component. If the project uses quantitative methods, please include detail of the core set of data that will be collected or analysed. Submission of the data collection will be a condition of final reporting that will need to be submitted to NIHR PRP when the grant has finished. If a health and/or care inequalities component is not included, please explain clearly why this does not fit within your research.

Specifically for this project, it may be useful to consider whether any particular groups are particularly impacted by discharge delays, and whether interventions have any differential impact for different groups. This may include consideration of local / regional variation, deprivation or characteristics covered by the Equality Act.

A recording of the Health Inequalities in NIHR PRP Research Q&A Event which was held on 19 September 2022 is available online, this may be useful to refer to as it provides additional information.

Further details about this new request can be found in Annex D

Annex A – Research / data: additional information

Data held within local area BCF plans and reporting information

There is an expectation that local areas will provide their spending plans by June 2023 with assurance completed by September 2023. Local area plans and reporting information tend to include: 

• Spend Planning data – this provides the aggregate spend data each local area has submitted as part of their BCF plans
• Intermediate Care Capacity and Demand Plans – to support areas to plan for expected demand and required capacity for short term care.
• Narrative plans – These narratives provide further detail on the local areas approach to integrating health and care services and their high-level objectives for the year, how they will make progress against the programme’s objectives, and how pooled funding from the BCF supports these objectives. Within these narratives, areas describe their approach to supporting unpaid carers and how BCF funding will contribute. 
• National outcome metrics - this provides local area data for national outcome metrics: discharge to usual place of residence, admissions to residential and care homes, unplanned admissions for ambulatory sensitive chronic conditions, the proportion of older people who were still at home 91 days after discharge from hospital into reablement or rehabilitation services, emergency hospital admissions due to falls in people over 65. These are collated from various data sources (e.g., ASCOF) within an annual report which describes how many HWBs are meeting their locally set targets.
• End of year reports – this provides information on whether local area BCF plans have met national conditions, actual spend data, and some qualitative feedback, e.g., the extent to which the BCF has supported closer working between health and social care.
• Outputs / quarterly reporting – The 2023-25 Policy Framework introduced activity data reporting. Information will be collected on the outputs of different types of spend by local areas, (e.g., X spend on respite care will support y number of unpaid carers, X spend on domiciliary care will provide Y hours of care).  In 2023 quarterly reporting is being reintroduced and will include updates on spend and activity data.

BCF data considerations

 The following points should be noted by applicants:

• Some of the metrics under the 2023-2025 BCF policy framework differ from previous metrics due to unavailability of data and a greater focus on hospital discharge. It is expected that the quantitative analysis will focus on relevant metrics up until 2022/2023 but that changes to the policy framework from 2023/2024 are considered when drawing implications from the findings. 
• During the pandemic, local areas did not have to submit formal BCF plans, there was no publication of the BCF policy framework in 2020-21 and considerable pressure was placed on the NHS system. The evaluation should consider how best to approach these changes to the BCF during COVID-19 and reflect on the potential implications this may have on system-level outcome data (especially hospital discharge and avoidable admissions data) and for drawing conclusions about the changes to the impact of the BCF on outcomes over time.

Annex B – Priority policy questions and potential methodologies

Our starting assumption is that this current study will build on some core elements of the previous PRP-funded BCF evaluation. This provides the opportunity for some continuity of approach, enabling this research to investigate changes in policy and delivery and their potential impacts over recent years. The current research also opens up potential new areas of enquiry, which could involve some innovative methodological approaches.

We have set out below some initial suggestions for how the overarching policy questions might be addressed. There are links and interrelationships across each, but we have set them out separately under the heading of priority policy questions for ease of explanation. We welcome comments and feedback from applicants on our initial thinking, as well as suggestions of alternative approaches.    

What longitudinal impacts has the BCF had on its system-level outcomes (e.g., from 2017 onwards)?

Elements of this question link to the suggested activities described below. Additional analyses could also involve:

• A review of the classification analysis based on the data provided by local systems to determine the range and scale of schemes / activities being funded by the BCF. This could lead to the development of updated typology of the main features of the BCF programmes in relation to its funded integration schemes, pooling of funding and the processes being implemented by local areas to achieve local policy objectives.
• Analyses to understand the impact of different levels and types of BCF expenditure. This could compare differences in outcome indicators between BCF sites, such as differences in the size of BCF expenditure per person and how spend was allocated between different activities (based on the classification analysis). System-level outcome indicators, may include:
• Hospital discharges (internal / NHS data) [Note: a delayed discharges metric will be adopted as a formal BCF metric ahead of winter 2023 to support the hospital discharge metric (this will only be adopted if the data is robust and can be published).]
• Unplanned admissions for ambulatory sensitive chronic conditions (Avoidable Admissions Metric and NHS Outcomes Framework)
• Emergency hospital admissions due to falls in people over 65 (Public Health Outcomes Framework)
• Effectiveness of reablement (ASCOF 2B1)
• Admissions to residential and care homes (ASCOF/SALT 2A2)

Additional topics of interest to the department include:

• Classification and analysis of unpaid carer activities / schemes - to assess the impact of BCF funded schemes on system-level outcome indicators. Such analyses would need to be sensitive to the proportionate spend, size and range of BCF funded unpaid carer activities / schemes to ensure that it is appropriately weighted towards areas of significant spending (e.g., intermediate care, hospital discharge and prevention).

What impacts has the BCF had on wider health and care outcomes?

We are interested in developing our understanding of the impact that the BCF may have on wider health and care outcomes. This includes, for example, exploring how (and in what way) the BCF may be effective at supporting integrated working between local health, social care and housing (e.g., supported housing) services, as well as understanding how this may facilitate improvements in BCF-specific (e.g., hospital discharge), or wider (e.g., quality of life) measures.

This study presents the opportunity to start to identify a range of new outcome metrics that may offer insight into longer-term outcomes that local integration activities and the BCF may have on wider health and social care outcomes, at a system but also service user level (e.g., quality of life, healthy life expectancy, wellbeing, quality of care etc).

Potential data sources could include the NHS Adult Social Care Outcomes Framework, the English Longitudinal Study of Ageing and the Health Survey for England. We welcome additional suggestions from the applicants.

How have the structures and conditions of the BCF (a) driven integration and (b) impacted system-level outcomes and wider health and care outcomes?

This process / formative evaluation should primarily focus on how core aspects of the BCF are being implemented in practice – including issues related to integrated working (especially given the establishment of ICBs, introduction of capacity and demand plans etc.), pooling of funds, leadership, culture, and joint decision-making.

We recognise that this is an ambitious policy requirement, and it will be methodically challenging. At this point, we envisage that a mixed methods approach may be required, and we welcome suggestions from applicants of which qualitative and quantitative approaches might be feasible and yield robust results. This could consist of a number of complementary work packages, triangulated and synthesised to build up a robust local and national picture of BCF implementation, for example:   

• Primary qualitative research involving key stakeholders involved with local BCF sites (e.g., ICB and HWB officials, BCF Managers, Director of Adult Social Services, local authorities) to provide insight into the extent to which, and how, integrated working facilitated by the BCF leads to its intended impacts.
• Secondary analysis – e.g., to explore variations across local areas to assess how successful the BCF has been implemented locally. This could involve, for example, an analysis of outcome measures (e.g., avoidable admissions, hospital discharge) and the identification and analysis of secondary data that may relate to other measures (e.g., levels of joint planning and decision-making, differing levels of voluntary contributions impact on avoidable admissions etc).

What impact has the Support Programme had on BCF system-level outcome measures?

We are interested in establishing an early and robust understanding of the actual and potential impact that the range of support services (technical and non-technical) provided by Programme may be having on the effectiveness of local BCF delivery and its system-level outcome measures.

Our starting point is that elements of the qualitative and quantitative research suggested above present the opportunity to address most aspects of this policy question. It is likely that the proposed approach will need to attempt to separate, where possible, the varying impacts of the technical and non-technical support delivered by the Support Programme from the schemes / activities being funded through the BCF. We welcome feedback from applicants whether this assumption is correct and are open to suggestions for additional activity that may also directly address the policy questions of interest.     

Annex C – Suggested study outputs

The following sets out additional information and potential outputs for this study. This is an initial list based on our suggestions for how the applicants might wish to approach this evaluation. (Annex B). We welcome feedback / comments from applicants.

The final report should be broken down into different components of the research, including as they relate to the policy questions. To support Officials and Ministers, it would be helpful if the applicants could also consider framing interim updates around the following component elements:  

Priority areas:

• an updated classification analysis that demonstrates the range and scale of schemes / activities funded by the BCF since 2017.
• an updated longitudinal impact evaluation of the impact of BCF on its system-level outcome indicators since 2017, with conclusions drawn about the effect of different sizes and types of spend within the BCF and inferences discussed about changes in outcome indicators over time.
• key themes identified from the process evaluation that provides insight into the ways in which the BCF has developed integrated forms of working between local and care services over time and offers recommendations for future policy decision and fund design (e.g., policy frameworks) to successfully enable delivery of integrated care through the BCF.

Additional areas:

• summaries and conclusions drawn about how local integration activities delivered through the BCF impact on longer-term health and care outcomes.
• A summary of the proxy measures developed that demonstrate how effectively the BCF has been implemented locally and conclusions about the relationship between the varying effective local area implementation of the BCF and system-level outcome indicators.
• A disaggregated impact evaluation of the impact of the Support Programme (delivered through the BCF) on system-level outcome indicators.

Annex D: Further Detail on the New Guidance on Health Inequalities data collection within NIHR PRP Research

Health Inequalities is a high priority area within the Department of Health and Social Care and the NIHR and is often present in a majority of funded projects. We are now assessing all NIHR research proposals in relation to health inequalities. We are asking applicants to identify in their application whether or not there is a health inequalities component or theme and how this research hopes to impact health inequalities. We are also asking researchers to collect relevant data related to health inequalities, if appropriate for the research. Collecting specific information about health inequalities in research submitted to the programme will allow for categorisation of health inequalities research, curation of data to aid future health inequalities research and enable policymakers to better understand the implications of health inequalities within their policy areas. This is a new request from the NIHR PRP and we will be continuing to monitor queries and adapt the process as needed. If you have any feedback on this new request, please contact us at prp@nihr.ac.uk. 

Our goal is to facilitate more widespread and consistent reporting of health inequality breakdown data relating to the primary outcomes of NIHR funded research. We would ideally like researchers to focus on the following equity-relevant variables: age, sex, gender, disability, region*, 5 ONS Ethnic groups**, and the 5 IMD quintile groups. These variables are considered an ideal, but we understand that these are subject to change depending on the sample population and specific research question.  

For qualitative research projects, this can be purely baseline characteristics of the participants, for example, the number of participants in each ethnic group. 

For quantitative research projects, if there are multiple outcomes/effects with your stakeholders, select a small number of main outcomes as appropriate to report equity breakdowns. We will not be prescriptive about the number of the outcomes, as it will depend on the number of study design types and the nature of the project aims. We are asking for one way cross tabulations of each primary outcome by these equity-relevant variables, if appropriate for your research, together with the number of observations in each cell. If more detailed cross tabulations are appropriate for your proposed research, please include these as well. This request applies to both primary data collection studies and secondary analysis of routine data, and to causal inference studies as well as descriptive studies; however, if this is not possible due to data limitations then please explain. Due to sample size and other data limitations there may be difficult scientific and/or data security*** judgement calls to make about which breakdowns to report and whether to merge categories to increase counts in particular cells; we ask you to make these judgments yourself, bearing in mind our data curation aim of enabling future evidence synthesis work in pooling results from different studies. We also ask that researchers report breakdowns for the unadjusted as well as adjusted outcomes/effects, as appropriate.

We understand that research projects may employ different methodologies, and focus on different populations. Please explain how the variables and data collection methods chosen are appropriate to the methodologies used. 

We ask that you please clearly identify in the research plan section of the application whether your application has a health inequalities component or not and detail the core set of health inequality breakdown data that will be collected, if applicable. Submission of the data collection will be a condition of the final report for all research with relevant methodologies regardless of whether the research has a health inequalities component that will need to be submitted to NIHR PRP when the grant has finished. This should only take a few sentences within the research plan section. 

* Table below uses the nine regions in England, further regions can be used if using the UK as the study population. Please report region breakdown for large samples in nationally representative descriptive studies. There is no need to report this for small sample studies, for sub-national studies, or for quasi-experimental studies where it would require time-consuming re-estimation.

** White, Mixed/ Multiple ethnic groups, Asian/ Asian British, Black/ African/ Caribbean/ Black British, Other ethnic group. If the sample size is small then it is fine to report only some of the requested equity breakdowns and to merge some of the sub-groups as appropriate.

*** For guidance on how to handle data security concerns in reporting of sensitive data please see ONS guidance.

Example data table for submission at the end of the funded research project

(N.B. If there is more than one main outcome then you will require more tables and if you adjust your outcome then you will need two tables for the adjusted outcome and unadjusted outcome):

Variable	Outcome (an appropriate average for this subgroup, usually the mean)	Number of observations	Additional information about variation if appropriate, e.g. range, standard deviation
Age	0	0	Additional information
Sex	0	0	Additional information
Gender	0	0	Additional information
Disability	0	0	Additional information
Ethnic Group	0	0	Additional information
IMD Group	0	0	Additional information
Region	0	0	Additional information