News

“Councils have a track record of doing everything they can to rise to the challenge of ensuring no child goes without a place, having created more than 800,000 new places since 2010."

Following the unprecedented Agreement reached on 26 March between the Fire Service National Employers, National Fire Chiefs Council and Fire Brigades Union, it has today been agreed to add a further three areas of work to reflect the scale of the national crisis and the urgency of the response required. Firefighters will be able to: Assist in taking samples for COVID-19 antigen testing Drive ambulance transport not on blue-lights (excluding known COVID-19 patients) to outpatient appointments or to receive urgent care Provide driving Instruction by FRS driver trainers to deliver training

Council employees have been offered an improved pay increase of 2.75 per cent from 1 April 2020, plus an additional one day’s leave which would increase the minimum entitlement from 21 to 22 days per year (plus public holidays).

"It is vital that the arrangements set out in the plan are urgently translated to reality on the ground."

"These figures begin to shine a light on the impact of coronavirus in care settings and on older and disabled people who use social care services."

“We want to work with the Government to ensure that schools are given the support they need over the immediate term, and this includes urgently placing a temporary pause on academy conversions during this time.

"It is vital that even more of this vital protective equipment is available to those who need it, including our valuable social care staff and others providing essential local services."

"Councils want to keep parks open, but people need to follow the social distancing advice."

“We are pleased that the Government has listened to our call to extend the food voucher scheme to cover the Easter holidays."

“This survey shows that most council-run general waste and recycling kerbside collection services are operating as normal, which is testament to the sterling work of refuse workers rising to the challenge during the coronavirus crisis."