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Council Information and Advice Websites: Information Toolkit

Toolkit | March 2015

This toolkit is designed to help councils review and adapt the front end of their website(s) so that they better comply with the Care Act and help the public understand the local care and support system. It sets out a template design for a series of webpages; these are principally intended for:

  • The local adult population, in particular:
    • People wanting to plan for their future care and support needs, including how they might plan to meet the cost of future care needs.
    • People who may develop care and support needs.
    • People who have not presented to local authorities for assessment but are likely to be in need of care and support.
    • Adults who are subject to adult safeguarding concerns.
    • Families, carers, and prospective carers, of the above.
  • Staff who provide information and advice about care and support as part of their jobs, particularly those who work outside of statutory social services, for example those who work in health/commissioned voluntary sector services.


The information given in this toolkit can be adapted for insertion into council web pages, regardless of the underlying technologies used locally. A Word version is available on request.

The document shows a series of suggested web pages, including content and links to further content/help. It also shows how each page links together, dependent on the choices available at each page. You can ‘pick and choose’ from the suggested pages/content.

This information toolkit was prepared for the South West Association of Directors of Adults Social Services (ADASS), as part of a wider project to support the implementation of the information and advice aspects of the Care Act and the Children and Families Act ‘Local offer’.

As part of the wider project, a toolkit for evaluating the effectiveness of information and advice provision and a Directory of good information and advice websites were also developed.