Briefings and responses

The Autumn Budget has taken a step forward by lifting the housing borrowing cap for some councils. We welcome this announcement, but it does not go far enough.

The local government finance settlement is the annual determination of funding to local government from central government. This briefing covers the consultation on the local government finance settlement for 2018/19. We expect the final 2018/19 settlement to be laid before the House of Commons, for its approval, in February 2018.

The LGA welcomes the principle of greater flexibility for local areas to design multi-agency arrangements that work best for their local circumstances, but we have long argued that this flexibility must be couched within a robust regulatory framework to ensure consistency of quality and effectiveness. Unfortunately, we believe that the provisions outlined in the consultation fall some way short of this ambition

Complicated national criteria for competitive funds will waste resource and slow down the UK reaching compliance. The LGA also believes that there is more scope for the Government to take national steps to hasten the transition to low emission vehicles.

Local authorities continue to play an important role in managing the impacts of welfare reform in their communities, including the rollout of the Universal Credit (UC) Full Service. It is therefore crucial that councils’ concerns about the effect of the rollout of UC on residents and services are listened to by the Government.

Together with NHS England, local authorities and the LGA have undertaken a range of measures to improve preparedness for winter.

European Union laws impact many of the council services that affect people's day-to-day lives, from protecting people from unsafe food when they eat out to regulating how councils buy goods and services. The conversion of EU law will therefore have an impact on our most important public services.

The LGA welcomes the national infrastructure assessment.

We are pleased to submit some headline views on the draft regulations which will enable the creation, via further statutory instruments, of locally- led New Town Development Corporations.

Almost no new money from central government has been included in the settlement, although the Government has increased the general council tax referendum limit from 1.99 per cent to 2.99 per cent for 2018/19 and 2019/20.