Cambridgeshire's Resource Allocation System — the UK Supreme Court Case That Set Rules for Algorithmic Care Budgets

England's Resource Allocation System (RAS) is a weighted-points formula, developed by Simon Duffy and John Waters through the "In Control" programme, that converts a standardised social-care needs questionnaire into an indicative annual personal budget for adult social care. It has been adopted by nearly all English local authorities since the mid-2000s, with an "Upper Banding Calculator" for the most complex cases.

In R (KM) v Cambridgeshire County Council, a severely disabled adult challenged his local authority's RAS-derived budget as too low and too opaque. After an Upper Banding review, his direct payment was set at £85,000 a year, with all of his presenting needs accepted as eligible.

The UK Supreme Court (2012) declined to strike down RAS itself, holding it an acceptable "ball-park" starting tool provided there is a realistic link between needs, points and costs. However, the Court of Appeal and Supreme Court sharply criticised the council's reasoning as "tortuous" and marked by "deficits in reasoning," and required authorities to give an intelligible written explanation of how a budget figure relates to assessed needs and costs.

RAS remains in use across most English councils, but disability and social-care researchers continue to flag a tendency for RAS to supplant professional judgement — a caution that a legally upheld formula is not the same as a well-calibrated one, and that transparency remedies address process, not necessarily accuracy.