Key messages
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The Local Government Association welcomes the helpful insight provided by the Dame Louise Casey review into opportunity and integration.
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The country is experiencing an evolving context on community cohesion issues. Against a backdrop of tensions highlighted by the referendum on leaving the European Union and threat of extremism and terrorism, local cohesion challenges vary considerably from place to place.
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Opportunity and integration, the two main themes of the review, are unequivocally linked to social mobility and aspiration; and in turn, to access to good quality education, jobs and housing.
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Local government has a key role to play in all of these services, but their powers to progress them have been eroded by successive governments.
- As the country looks to move forward after our withdrawal from the EU, councils must now be given the tools that can help them improve opportunities cohesion in all local areas.