Briefings and responses

Knife crime has a devastating impact on victims, their families and communities. The recent rise in such crimes committed by young people is of enormous concern.

Despite the new money, councils still face an overall funding gap of almost £8 billion by 2025 just to maintain services at current levels. It is becoming increasingly challenging to maintain the current level of support for the Armed Forces Community.

"We consider that there is an urgent need to consolidate the CIL regulations into a single updated version to reflect the numerous changes made since its introduction."

We do remain concerned by the increase in the charges councils are having to pay to the ICO as data controllers. This comes at a time when local government is under significant financial pressure and councils are receiving no additional government funding to help implement GDPR.

Councils are central to building communities that are inclusive, cohesive and promote people’s life chances.

We are calling on the Government to extend the supplementary funding for MNS into 2020/21 to provide certainty to providers while a sustainable solution is found as part of the Spending Review.

The housing shortage is one of the most pressing issues we face. Councils have a key role in delivering more affordable housing and helping to build 300,000 new homes a year.

We agree the safeguarding response to this crime could be strengthened to improve protection for people who are at risk and unable to protect themselves, ensure perpetrators are brought to justice and help to prevent forced marriage from occurring in the first place.

We welcome the steps that have been taken to date to address dangerous cladding and other fire safety issues, including the ban on combustible cladding. However, the Government needs to act with urgency to deliver protections for residents in dangerous buildings as quickly as possible.

Councils are uniquely placed to build communities that are inclusive, cohesive and promote people’s life chances. They do this by tailoring more than 800 local services to the needs of their residents, to meet local and national challenges.