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 majority of parents who home educate their children do a good job and work well with their local council to make sure that a good education is being provided. However, we are concerned that not all children are registered as home schooled, particularly where they have never joined the mainstream education system or they have moved to a new area.
The valuation of non-investment assets for financial reporting purposes has been a contributory factor to the current crisis in local audit and how the valuation of such assets is audited is an area that needs to be addressed if the crisis is to be solved. Clearly how the assets are valued in the first place is an important step in that and we are in broad agreement with the proposals in the consultation for most asset classes. However, the proposals for valuing networked assets (usually called “infrastructure assets” in local authorities) will cause significant problems and additional costs for councils and we suggest that an alternative and more practical approach should be taken to valuing them.
The consultation paper was issued before strict measures were implemented to address the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the financial environment for local government has changed so profoundly that we cannot overlook the issue.
The Bill requires councils to produce improvement plans for some of their high streets at the same time as the tools available to them to make improvements continue to be blunted because of the continued erosion of planning controls.
The Health and Social Care Committee’s report correctly recognises the crucial role that local government has to play in ensuring children receive the support they need during the initial formative stage of life.
Despite councils’ good work, the current funding model is not sustainable. Local authorities’ public health grant funding has reduced by over £700 million in real terms between 2015/16 and 2019/20.
The LGA broadly supports the Bill’s focus on improving the health and wellbeing of the population through greater integration between NHS organisations and between the NHS and local government. We also support the duty on the integrated care board (ICB) and all local authorities within the integrated care system (ICS) to have regard to the integrated care strategy in making decisions.
We support the intention of the legislation to give local systems the flexibility to make their own arrangements for joining up services, and setting their own strategies for improving population health, but this means that there is relatively little on the face of the Bill and more emphasis will be on statutory guidance to accompany the legislation.