The National Institute for Health and Care Excellence (NICE) is the independent organisation responsible for providing national guidance and advice on promoting good health and preventing and treating ill health. From 2013, NICE has an expanded remit to produce guidance and set quality standards for social care. This guidance manual explains how NICE develops and updates social care guidance. It provides advice on the technical aspects of guidance development and the methods used. It is aimed primarily at staff at the NICE Collaborating Centre for Social Care (NCCSC) and at members of the Guidance Development Groups (GDGs) that develop the individual guidance. It is also likely to be useful and of interest to a broader audience, including developers of other guidance, such as NICE clinical guidelines or NICE public health guidance. The advice in this manual draws on international guideline development methodology, and the experience and expertise of the teams in the Centre for Public Health Excellence and the Centre for Clinical Practice at NICE, and the National Collaborating Centres that work with NICE. It is based on internationally acceptable criteria of quality, as detailed in the appraisal of guidelines research and evaluation II instrument, and adapted for use in social care guidance development. It is designed to fulfil the requirements of the NICE accreditation scheme. The structure of this manual follows the development of NICE social care guidance from inception through to publication.