Briefings and responses

It is vital that vulnerable children, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic, are the focus of this programme of work. In their role as leaders of local education systems, councils can bring together partners, join up local efforts to promote education recovery.

The regulation proposed in this Bill is aimed at ensuring platforms have systems and processes in place to deal with illegal and harmful content and their associated risk, particularly to children and young people.

The Local Government Association (LGA) supports the overall aims of the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which makes provisions for the regulation by Ofcom of certain internet services.

The LGA recognises the delicate balance this legislation must maintain between preserving users’ freedom of expression and civil liberties whilst also protecting users from harmful content.

Schools should also be given greater certainty of future funding, to help them better plan for the spending pressures they face. Three-year budgets should replace annual budgets.

Three-quarters of mental health problems first emerge before the age of 25, so it makes sense economically to invest in mental health support for young people, as well as making a huge difference to people’s lives.

The LGA welcomes the principle of greater flexibility for local areas to design multi-agency arrangements that work best for their local circumstances, but we have long argued that this flexibility must be couched within a robust regulatory framework to ensure consistency of quality and effectiveness. Unfortunately, we believe that the provisions outlined in the consultation fall some way short of this ambition

The LGA is deeply concerned about the ability of schools and councils to implement reductions in funding in the proposed one year of the ‘soft' funding formula in 2018-19.

The High Needs National Funding Formula (NFF) proposals will be in place for at least four years, according to the Stage 2 consultation documents. Therefore, it is essential that the NFF provides a robust and equitable method of funding provision and services for children and young people with special educational needs and disabilities and vulnerabilities.

The LGA has raised concerns that councils do not currently have the powers to fulfil their duties to ensure home schooled children are receiving a suitable education. In particular, this is because they have no powers to enter homes or to see children to satisfy themselves that this is the case.