On behalf of its membership, the cross-party LGA regularly submits to Government
consultations, briefs parliamentarians and responds to a wide range of parliamentary inquiries. Our recent
responses to government consultations and parliamentary briefings can be found here.
Central government should work in partnership with local government to co-design future digital inclusion policy to ensure communities are not at risk of being left behind, building on the recommendations from the LGA’s recent digital exclusion report.
Upgrading, replacing and reconnecting these telecare devices, just one element of the PSTN switchover, to the digital network will be extremely costly. GLA Economics estimates the upgrade costs to be £31 million for London boroughs and impacting over 63,000 users.
Councils want to go further to tackle regional inequalities in broadband infrastructure and accelerate the roll out in hard-to-reach communities. Local authority digital champions act as a central point of contact, helping to extend gigabit-capable broadband across the country as quickly as possible. We are therefore calling on Government to fully fund a digital champion in every local authority.
This briefing summarised the guidance and some of the key issues councils and combined authorities will need to consider in advance of further details about the UKSPF being released.
The UK’s exit from the EU represents an opportunity to provide local areas with new ways to manage their economies. We have made the case for reforming the funding landscape to secure better outcomes and a key chance to deliver this priority is the design of the UKSPF.
Local leaders have shown throughout the pandemic that they are well placed to deliver the best outcomes for local communities. They are also best placed to align the work of government departments and agencies with the assets and opportunities of different places.
The COVID-19 pandemic has led to an acceleration of changes to the reasons people visit and use high streets. Data for November 2020 shows that footfall is at 45 percent compared to the same period last year. Before the pandemic, footfall had dropped over 10 per cent in the last 7 years. Internet sales had risen to 21 per cent of all retail sales at the end of 2019 compared to 7 per cent a decade earlier, and during the height of the national lockdown period in May this had jumped to nearly 33 per cent of all retail sales.