The Government is committed to improving Mental Health services in England and has released significant funding to CCGs as part of its 5-year Mental Health Implementation plan. To achieve the improvement in its Mental Health services each CCG must meet the Mental Health Investment Standard (MHIS), by which their annual investment in mental health services rises at a faster rate than their overall published programme funding. Expected compliance against the MHIS is reported monthly through the Financial Performance Framework under which CCGs operate and published in the Annual Statutory Accounts. For the first time in 2018/19, there was an additional assurance requirement for each CCG’s auditors to validate their reported year-end position against MHIS target. The assurance work was designed to assure NHS England that Mental Health spend was comprehensive, complete and classified correctly against the 15 Mental Health reporting programmes. DDES and North Durham CCGs (which merged on 1st April 2020 to form County Durham CCG) commissioned Mazars LLP to undertake this assurance work, which was undertaken between October 2019 to December 2019. The following reports demonstrate the conclusion of that MHIS assurance work and the CCG confirms that;
- It has met its obligations with regards to the MHIS, and investment in mental health for financial year 2018/19 increased by a greater percentage than their overall published programme allocation.
And that
- Mazars’ report concludes that the CCG’s Statement of Compliance was properly prepared in all material respects with the MHIS guidance except in relation to a small number of technical points, which in the CCGs view do not impact on the overall achievement of the standard.
The CCG statement of Compliance and Mazars LLP reasonable assurance reports are published below for your information.