It is just over 12 months since the Government announced another delay to the publication of its Green Paper on the future of adult social care. As a result, we in the Local Government Association (LGA) decided to produce our own version, The lives we want to lead, drawing on the work that we and many others had already conducted.

It was written in only five weeks, with its launch kick-starting a two-month consultation period involving five focus groups across the country, over 1,700 members of the public polled on key questions, and more than 540 individuals and organisations submitting their responses. We published our follow-up report, setting out our findings and recommendations, two months later.