Mental Health Financial Reporting
Ensuring public clarity about mental health funding, particularly the proportion of overall health services funding being spent on mental health services, is seen as an important way to measure "parity of esteem"– valuing mental health equally to physical health.
	The Act therefore seeks to strengthen the accountability and transparency on spending relating to mental health. The Act will place a requirement to publish before the start of each financial year whether NHS mental health expenditure is expected to increase in the amount and proportion as compared to the previous year. It is expected that this expenditure will include integrated care boards’ baseline spend within scope of the Mental Health Investment Standard, which covers all spending on mental health from an integrated care board’s core allocations; NHS England service development fund spending on mental health; and specialised commissioning spending on mental health. NHS England and integrated care boards will then have to report back on their performance against this expectation as part of their respective annual reporting.