Briefings and responses

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.

The Queen today set out the Government’s agenda for the next Parliamentary session. This briefing details the new Bills of relevance to local government and outlines our local government priorities. 

The LGA’s view is that the best way to increase housing security is to address the unaffordability of housing, which is a key reason why many people lose their tenancy and become homeless.

The Local Government Association is supportive of proposals to widen access to the national rogue landlord database to tenants and prospective tenants. We are also supportive of expanding the scope of offences leading to entries on the database.

Existing outdated taxi and private hire vehicle (PHV) licensing laws need to be updated and strengthened.  The LGA is calling on the Government to take forward commitments it made in response to its task and finish group’s report and introduce reform legislation in the next Queen’s Speech.

Councils across the country are doing all they can to safeguard and protect women and girls from all forms of harm. We support a public health approach to tackling serious violent crime against women and girls, which is a key contributor to poor mental health.

In order for the Bill to have real success in tackling domestic abuse and creating consistency of services, it must be underpinned by adequate, long term funding in key services including children’s services and housing.

The issue of relatively low pay in the social care sector is highlighted regularly and the settlement in the Spending Round provides resources to begin to address this challenge. In the long term the low pay needs to be addressed as part of the arrangements for the future funding of both adult and children’s social care.

We welcome the proposal for businesses to provide more regular information to the VOA, as part of a move to more frequent valuations. This must be accompanied by measures to significantly reduce the backlog of appeals.

Where Knife Crime Protection Order (KCPO) areas are introduced, it will be essential to ensure the new orders effectively tackle knife crime. These orders should not contribute to the unnecessary criminalisation of young people.