Briefings and responses

Whilst the Bill provides a definition of harm and sets out how harmful content will be prioritised for child and adult users; it remains unclear what types of harm platforms will need to protect users against. We urge the Government to set out their proposed categories of harmful content to children and adults as soon as possible and consult with independent experts to define and prioritise harmful content.

This briefing note on the impact of utilities on leisure services has been jointly produced by ukactive and the Local Government Association for councils and for operators running council-owned facilities.

The LGA has long highlighted that adult social care exists to enable adults of all ages and with a range of conditions to live their best life and an equal life.

The LGA welcomes the publication of Government’s Net Zero Strategy. It is our view that the next stage of work should be a deliverable plan that will help to coordinate the actions of the multiple players that are essential in achieving decarbonisation.

The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) held a consultation on social housing rents between 31 August and 12 October 2022. The consultation sought views on the introduction of a rent ceiling from 1 April 2023 to 31 March 2024. Our response to the consultation questions can be found below.

This submission makes the case to Government for a radical reinvestment in local and combined authorities that enables councils to turbo-charge local growth and create preventative public services that save money and improve the lives of some of the most vulnerable in our society.

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan is an important opportunity to recognise local government’s leadership role in improving the mental health and wellbeing of our communities.

We are disappointed the Bill removes the existing requirement to designate a data protection officer. Although the proposal is now to replace this with a Senior Responsible Individual, this is a person at Senior Management Team level who would not have the time or experience to undertake much of what the data protection officer did.

The previous reforms to the SEND system set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 have failed to achieve the goal of improving provision for children with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND). Placing children and young people at the centre of the SEND system was right, but the reforms set out in the Act were not supported by sufficient powers or funding to allow councils to meet the needs of children with SEND or hold health and education partners to account for their contributions to local SEND systems.

The Local Government Association (LGA) supports the overall aims of the Online Safety Bill (OSB), which makes provisions for Ofcom to regulate certain internet services.