Councils call for more investment in early intervention
Shropshire Council warns of £6m overspend
Councils detecting more cases of fraud
Councils make £930m profit from parking
Revaluating financing options
Caroline Daves considers if leasing be part of the solution for councils and schools as the PWLB interest rate rises.
Caerphilly council agrees 7% council tax hike
14/11/2019 A county council in Wales has agreed a package of savings proposals which include a council tax increase of nearly 7%. |
Council offers £10,000 package to attract foreign companies
14/11/2019 Torbay Council in Devon is offering foreign-owned companies up to £10,000 to relocate all or part of their operations to the region. |
Councils in flood-hit areas to receive £500 per affected house
13/11/2019 Local authorities in areas that have experienced flooding will be given £500 for each affected house to help with recovery efforts under the recovery scheme. |
Reform ‘broken’ business rates system, retailers say
12/11/2019 Retailers are urging the next Government to reform the business rates system, which they argue penalises the retail sector by over £1bn every five years. |
Emergency Bellwin scheme activated in response to flooding
11/11/2019 Councils will be able to apply to be reimbursed for costs incurred as part of their response to the heavy rainfall that has hit the regions in recent days. |
Councils need billions more in funding, research finds
10/11/2019 Councils will need billions of extra pounds worth of funding in the next parliament, if they are to meet the rising cost of adult social care, the Institute for Fiscal Studies (IFS) has calculated. |
Council chiefs call for more cash to fight fly-tipping
08/11/2019 Local authority leaders have urged the next Government to ensure that councils have the necessary funds to tackle fly-tipping. |
Charities use Tampon Tax to fund homelessness services
07/11/2019 Charities for homeless women have been awarded grants totalling £1.85m funded by money collected from VAT on the sale of sanitary products. |
Public spending still lower than pre-recession, says IFS
07/11/2019 Planned hikes in public spending would still leave spending in 2020-21 3% lower than it was in 2010-11, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies. |
Watchdog finds unlawful spending at two councils
06/11/2019 Two councils in Wales have incurred over £290,000 of 'unlawful' expenditure, the Auditor General for Wales has warned. |
Business rates reforms will only help richest authorities, report finds
06/11/2019 Two-thirds of councils will see their income fall in real terms by 2025 due business rates reforms, research has found today. |
Cost of alternative polling stations to be funded by Whitehall
06/11/2019 Councils will be reimbursed for the cost of finding alternative polling stations in the upcoming General Election. |
Councils welcome increase in funeral expenses payments
06/11/2019 Councils leaders hope the increase in funeral expenses payments will help lower the number of public health funerals. |
Councils given extra £4m to tackle rogue landlords
05/11/2019 Councils have been awarded an extra £4m in new funding to take action against criminal landlords. |
Think tanks calls for public health funding to be linked to NHS budgets
05/11/2019 Public health funding should be linked to increases in the NHS budget, a briefing published by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) suggests. |
Councils warn about spiralling cost of free school transport
04/11/2019 Councils will be spending £1.2bn on providing free school transport by 2024, new research has found. |
Medway trials new way of collecting council tax
01/11/2019 A leading councillor has hailed a trial scheme to deduct council tax directly from earnings as a way to target people who ignore reminder letters and refuse to pay. |
Chancellor announces £250m ‘infrastructure revolution’
01/11/2019 More than £250m in funding will be made available to provide infrastructure for thousands of homes, the chancellor has said, in a move condemned as a pre-election ‘publicity stunt’. |
Councils receive free childcare funding boost
31/10/2019 Councils offering 15 hours free childcare for disadvantaged two-year-olds will receive an increase in their hourly funding, the Government has confirmed today. |
MPs slam 'broken' business rates system
31/10/2019 MPs have urged the Government to reform the 'broken' business rates system and consider alternatives in time for the Spring Statement 2020. |
Councils urged to make case for private capital investment
29/10/2019 A new guide has been published to help councils attract private and foreign investment into local areas. |
DfT supports long-term funding proposal to tackle ‘plague of potholes’
28/10/2019 Local authority leaders have welcomed a Department for Transport commitment to a longer-term funding settlement which could help councils tackle the ‘plague of potholes’ on local roads. |
Whitehall launches £400m improvement fund for academies
28/10/2019 Academies and sixth form colleges can now bid for a share of a multi-million pound fund to help improve facilities, the Government has announced. |
Council chiefs sceptical of £1.35m parks fund
28/10/2019 Local government leaders call for ‘long-term, sustainable funding’ to support green spaces in response to the Government’s launch of a £1.35m pocket parks fund. |
Funding for buses cut by 40% in last decade
25/10/2019 Local authority funding for buses in England has fallen by more than 40% in the past decade, new figures have revealed today. |
Youth projects given £12m funding boost
25/10/2019 Youth projects across the country are to be given a £12m boost culture secretary Nicky Morgan has announced. |
High street hit as retail employment falls by 85,000
24/10/2019 ‘Weak’ consumer demand and ‘Brexit uncertainty’ have been blamed for the decline of the high street as figures reveal thousands of retail jobs have been lost. |
Seaside towns dominate top 20 bankruptcy list
22/10/2019 British seaside towns dominate a list of the top 20 places for bankruptcies in the UK. |
Small businesses call for ‘radical’ business rates reform
21/10/2019 Representatives of small businesses have written to the chancellor calling on him to introduce business rates reform to help struggling firms. |
Council to re-direct £5.5m to 'inadequate' children’s services
18/10/2019 Stoke-on-Trent City Council has approved plans to invest £5.5m into its children’s services following an ‘inadequate’ rating from Ofsted earlier this year. |
Council overspends £100k due to ‘poor financial management’
17/10/2019 A town council has been forced to withdraw most the money from its reserves to cover an overspend of £100,000, auditors have revealed. |
Recycling and refuse top public’s spending priority list
17/10/2019 Councils should spend more money on rubbish collection and recycling, according to the results of a new poll. |
Chanceller urged to scrap inflationary business rate rise
17/10/2019 The chancellor has been urged to scrap an increase in business rates in the Autumn Budget, following warnings it will add more than £536m to the business rates burden. |
Cities offered over £875,000 to support innovative climate change solutions
14/10/2019 Europe’s largest public-private partnership has called on cities around the world to join its ‘Climathon Global Awards’ to find new systems level solutions to tackle climate change. |
Homelessness crisis costs London councils £200m a year, report reveals
14/10/2019 The homelessness crisis and inadequate funding are costing local authorities in London an estimated £200m every year, the capital’s councils have warned. |
Council invests £18m in energy company
14/10/2019 Warrington Borough Council has agreed to invest £18m into a Scotland-based energy company because of its ‘unique industry business model’. |
Whitehall announces £250m of culture spending
14/10/2019 The Government has announced £250m of funding for cultural projects, libraries, museums and the creative industries after a decade of cuts. |
Cost of B&Bs for homeless people rockets
14/10/2019 Councils are being forced to spend more than £90m a year on placing homeless people in bed and breakfasts, council chiefs have warned. |
New financial management code launched
11/10/2019 A new Financial Management Code has been launched to drive improvement in financial management for councils across the UK. |
Council pension scheme invests in green fund
11/10/2019 A council pension scheme has become one of the first to invest in a new ‘green’ fund which supports low carbon technology. |
Hike in PWLB rate will cost councils £70m a year
11/10/2019 The 1% increase to the Public Works Loan Board (PWLB) rate will cost councils £70m a year, town hall chiefs have warned. |
Launch of first pooled LGPS property fund
10/10/2019 A new fund that pools the property assets of three public sector pension schemes has been launched. |
Public call for more investment in housing benefit
10/10/2019 Three quarters of the public believe that housing benefit should increase in line with rents, according to a new poll published to mark World Homeless Day. |
Councils agree to £1m payment to struggling tourism firm
09/10/2019 Council leaders in Yorkshire have agreed to give an embattled tourism agency £1m because closing it down ‘could cost more than £3m’. |
Spending on youth services cut 73% in decade
08/10/2019 A new analysis from the Labour Party has revealed that public spending on youth services in England has been reduced by £1bn – or 73% – since 2010. |
Millions struggling to pay council tax and household bills, study finds
08/10/2019 Nearly 1.6 million people are falling behind on their council tax payments, new research has revealed. |
Towns ‘starved’ of investment, think tank says
08/10/2019 A think tank has warned that towns are ‘starved of the investment they badly need’ as most foreign direct investment goes to the major cities. |
Councils urged to apply for funding from £2m air quality pot
04/10/2019 The Government has today announced the latest round of funding to help local authorities improve air quality across England. |
Council angered by Hampshire CC’s decision to charge for contaminated recycling
03/10/2019 A local authority in Hampshire is seeking legal advice after the county council announced that it would bill local councils for contaminated recycling. |
Climate change targets ‘unlikely to be met’ without funding, council chiefs say
03/10/2019 National climate change targets are ‘unlikely to be met’ unless local authorities are given long-term funding and more powers, council chiefs say. |
This issue of Local Government News explores how councils can tackle modern slavery and trafficking in their supply chains, finds out more about Cambridge's first cohousing scheme and the launch of a new project to build a shared service pattern library for local government.
This issue also contains a special focus on children's services and how councils are protecting children following local safeguarding children boards being abolished.
