Briefings and responses

Below is the LGA's response to the Statutory guidance for Local Authorities on providing youth services.

Instead of pushing for more permitted development, Government must continue to work with local government and the mobile industry to share best practice and guidance to help the streamlined deployment of mobile infrastructure within the current planning regime to allow communities to engage in the development of their local areas.

We note that the consultation states that the provisional Local Government Finance Settlement will be published in December 2019. We would urge the Government to publish the provisional settlement as soon as possible after 12 December and no later than Parliament rising for the Christmas recess.

The LGA has long called for retailers and manufacturers to pay for recycling and disposing of packaging in household waste. We welcome the commitment in the Bill to do this but it does not provide enough details for councils to assess the financial and service impacts of the reforms.

Children should be supported to get the best, not just left to get by. Councils can be empowered to support them if the local authority role goes beyond the provision of statutory child protection services alone.

Councils approve nine in ten planning applications and last year worked with developers to permission over 350,000 homes, an 11-year high.

The measures in the Bill seek to establish a new system of green governance and accountability; drive a shift in maximising resource efficiency; enable greater local action on air pollution; secure long-term, resilient water and wastewater services; create or restore wildlife habitats; and give the Secretary of State the power to amend legislation regulating the use of chemicals.

District councils are at the heart of delivering on many of the key issues that matter to communities. This includes services such as housing, planning, waste and recycling services, as well as leisure centres, museums and parks.

The LGA has offered to work with the Department of Health and Social Care, the NHS and Health Education England to get the right number of training places commissioned and to deliver policies to ensure health visiting remains an attractive and valued career.

We are concerned by recent reports around some unregulated provision, in particular increasing issues about the vulnerability of young people in unregulated accommodation to organised crime, including county lines.