Briefings and responses

The current flexible use of capital receipts scheme, which has run since 2016/17 and has now been extended until March 2030, has been welcomed by councils.

The current Household Support Fund (HSF), which contributed £840 million to English councils’ provision of local welfare support in 2023/24, is set to end on 31 March 2024.

A Private Members’ Bill to require providers of electronic communications networks to grant other such providers access to their apparatus where that is necessary to ensure a consistent network coverage.

Despite welcome new funding announced in the 2022 Autumn Statement, a combination of sharply increasing cost and demand pressures means that the sector is in a parlous financial position. Much-valued services, frequently focused on the most vulnerable in society, are under pressure and at risk. Additional government support is needed urgently to ensure local financial and service sustainability.

A Westminster Hall Debate on the Implementation of the Shared Rural Network

A Westminster Hall Debate on School Attendance

The evidence of the financial strain on councils has been growing. The settlement does not provide enough funding to meet the severe cost and demand pressures which have left councils of all political colours and types warning of the serious challenges they face to set balanced budgets next year. Councils in England continue to face a funding gap of £4 billion across this year and next. The 2024/25 provisional settlement does not change the funding gap facing councils.

Councils share the Government’s ambition of making sure every child with special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) gets the high-quality support that they need. Reforms set out in the Children and Families Act 2014 failed to achieve the goal of improving provisions for children with special educational needs and disabilities and 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.

We call for opportunities for local government to help shape the work of Oflog. We are concerned that Oflog’s Data Explorer provides poor value for money. There is a need to ensure that Oflog’s ‘early warning conversations’ and peer reviews do not duplicate the LGA’s work. Oflog is not an independent body: this has implications for public trust in its work.

Democracy and standards in public life are vital at a national and local level. However, increasing levels of toxicity in public and political discourse are deterring people from standing for election and representing their local communities.