Briefings and responses

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.

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Debate on the role of schools in caring for mental health and wellbeing of pupils and their development as community and family members

School-based counselling and mental health support needs to be fully funded by the Government in all state-funded secondary schools and academies, to help support rising numbers of children and young people reporting mental health issues.

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Schools (Mental Health and Wellbeing) Bill, Second Reading, 2024

We need to ensure that children and young people can also access high-quality mental health support outside of school. Many children and young people face challenges accessing support for their mental health. Patchy implementation of policies has also fuelled a postcode lottery in provision meaning that children and young people do not get a consistent offer of support.

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Schools (Mental Health Professionals) Bill, 18 December 2023

A rise in mental health problems in children and young people in recent years, exacerbated by COVID-19, has placed additional pressures on services and has hindered progress in reaching access targets. Targets set to improve the quality of care within inpatient settings, and to reduce their use in the long term, not been met.

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Debate on mental health support for children and young people, House of Lords, 23 November 2023

Research commissioned by the LGA found that whilst there have been a raft of successive policies and strategies to improve mental health outcomes for children, there has been a missed opportunity to significantly ease pressure on the system by increasing the availability of preventative and early intervention support. Early intervention has been highlighted as a central aspect in many of these policies, however, this focus has not translated through to action with the system leaning towards prioritising specialist and complex treatments rather than early intervention and prevention.

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LGA submission to the Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan call for evidence

The Mental Health and Wellbeing Plan is an important opportunity to recognise local government’s leadership role in improving the mental health and wellbeing of our communities.

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Reforming the Mental Health Act white paper 2021

The Government published the Reforming the Mental Health Act white paper in August 2021, which sets out proposed changes to the Mental Health Act 1983 (MHA) and wider reforms of policy and practice around it. This briefing summarises the key points of the white paper with regard to people with a learning disability and autistic people.

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Community Discharge Grant 2021/22

In July 2020, the Government announced the £62 million Community Discharge Grant in England to help accelerate the discharge of patients with learning disabilities and/or autistic people from mental health hospitals into the community.

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LGA submission to the Reforming the Mental Health Act White Paper

It is essential that the new Act clearly recognises the local leadership role of councils and identifies the roles and responsibilities of councils in respect of both statutory and non-statutory mental health duties, working in partnership with the NHS and local voluntary and community services.

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Mental health of children and young adults in the UK - House of Lords, 16 May 2019

Good mental health is essential for a healthy and prosperous society. Unfortunately, it is easier to focus on what happens when a person becomes mentally ill, and how the health service intervenes, rather than how to keep our communities mentally well in the first place.

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