Briefings and responses

The LGA started a new programme of work on this issue in January 2017 when the then Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner, Kevin Hyland OBE, met the LGA’s Safer and Stronger Communities Board.

The LGA has set out our vision for youth services as part of our Bright Futures campaign. We are calling on the Government to develop a similar vision that recognises the important contribution youth services make to our communities.

In this paper, we are summarising for councils both the “known” and “unknowns” under a ‘no deal’ scenario for local government from national advice.

We welcome the Tenant Fees Bill and we are pleased that the Bill received cross-party support in the House of Commons. The Government’s intention to make private rented accommodation more accessible is positive. Excessive letting agent fees are a concern for many tenants and councils.

Councils continue to work hard to support and deliver the many programmes for refugees and asylum seekers currently in operation. Councils want to work with central government to find sustainable solutions that minimise the pressures on local authorities, their communities and vulnerable individuals.

We have long called for an overhaul of the current Deprivation of Liberty Safeguards (DoLS) process to create a fully-funded, simpler and less bureaucratic scheme

It is fantastic that the Government has accepted our long-standing call to scrap the housing borrowing cap. This demonstrates the Government’s willingness to make councils central to solving the national housing crisis. We would welcome clarity on when this will be implemented, and urge that this should be as soon as possible.

We want the continued implementation of Universal Credit to be a success. Equally crucially we want the reformed welfare system as a whole to be a success, not just for Government, but for councils and, most importantly, for the people using it.

Right now councils are housing 77,000 families and 125,000 homeless children in temporary accommodation, with a further million on waiting lists. The last time the country built enough homes councils built 40 per cent of them. We urgently need a renaissance in council house building. 

Adult social care is a crucial service in its own right that transform peoples’ quality of life. However, years of significant underfunding coupled with rising demand and costs for care and support, have combined to push adult social care services to breaking point.