On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
The local government finance settlement is the annual determination of funding to local government from central government. This briefing covers the provisional settlement for 2022/23. We expect the final 2022/23 settlement to be laid before the House of Commons, for its approval, in late January or early February 2022.
To meet the Government’s aspirations for the build out of new homes to help deliver 300,000 new homes per year, the Government needs to provide councils with the tools to encourage and oblige developers to build out sites with permission in a swift and timely manner.
This summary paper sets out some of the issues that councils are grappling with in their work on modern slavery and is intended to assist the Government as it works to refresh and update its modern slavery strategy.
The National Safe and Wellbeing Review Programme was identified as part of the NHSE response to the Safeguarding Adult Review (SAR) that will be undertaken to check the safety and wellbeing of all people with a learning disability and autistic people (children, young people, and adults) who were in any mental health hospital, learning disability or autism inpatient setting and including people on Section 17 leave funded by clinical commissioning groups (CCGs) or provider collaboratives, NHSEi specialist commissioning on 31 October 2021. The reviews are expected to be completed by 31 January 2022.
Prior to the Spending Review, the LGA estimated that councils faced cost pressures of £2.6 billion in each year up to 2024/25, to keep services at their 2019/20 levels of access and quality – without addressing any pre-existing pressures.
No leaseholder should have to pay the costs of making their homes safe and the Secretary of State’s threat to use the legal system to ensure developers meet their responsibilities to leaseholders is a positive step in the right direction. However, leaseholders are not the only innocent victims of the construction industry’s failure to build safe homes.
The LGA supports the aims of the Down Syndrome Bill, which would create a new duty on the Secretary of State to issue guidance to relevant authorities (health, education and local authorities in respect of social care and housing) on how to meet the specific needs of people with Down syndrome; and for relevant authorities to have due regard to the guidance in providing services.
This briefing sets out the headline announcements in the Government's Levelling Up White Paper, summarises elements of the 12 missions relevant to local councils and provides details of our improvement and support offer for areas looking to take forward a devolution deal.
The LGA has long highlighted that council tax rises – particularly the adult social care precept – have never been the solution to the long-term pressures faced by councils, particularly in social care which is facing severe financial and capacity challenges. Increasing council tax raises different amounts of money in different parts of the country, unrelated to need.
This briefing provides an update of the ADASS Advice note 'Carers and Safeguarding Adults' produced in 2011 for frontline workers and brings it in line with the Care Act 2014. It is intended to be used as a practical tool and does not seek to amend or replace existing statutory guidance that may be in place. The briefing will support the improvement in practice regarding safeguarding adults as well as safeguarding their carers.