Briefings and responses

High-quality early years provision can have a positive impact on children, particularly disadvantaged children, in terms of their immediate development and long-term outcomes.

The successful delivery of flood and coastal erosion risk management and property flood resilience is only going to be successful with increased cooperation and cross border partnership working. Long term plans should be developed with the Local Authorities.

This settlement continues to leave local public health teams with limited resources to maintain essential services such as sexual health services and specialist community public health nursing

The LGA is calling for the Government to ensure that all councils have sufficient funding to deliver their 2023/24 budgets, set balanced budgets for 2024/25 and develop medium-term financial strategies that are not characterised by substantial funding gaps.

Our call on Government to make the scheme work for everyone.

The LGA's response to the Government's consultation on Non-investment Asset Valuation for Financial Reporting Purposes - Exposure Draft

It is concerning that bill does not make non-discretionary provision for new burdens funding for lead enforcement authorities. It is vital that the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) conducts a full assessment of the resources councils need to effectively administer the redress scheme and the costs of setting up a scheme. New burdens funding should then be allocated accordingly.

We need to ensure that children and young people can also access high-quality mental health support outside of school. Many children and young people face challenges accessing support for their mental health. Patchy implementation of policies has also fuelled a postcode lottery in provision meaning that children and young people do not get a consistent offer of support.

This consultation follows on from proposals originally made in 2021 to which we responded, and a further post consultation survey on revised proposed regulations that we also responded to. The proposals made in the current consultation have taken account of the comments we made in response to those earlier consultations and it is clear that the aim of the revised regulations and guidance is to avoid the potential problems with drafting in the original proposals that we and others in the sector highlighted. This is to be welcomed.