Poverty and inequality are financial challenges for local authorities and threaten the cohesion of their communities.
A number of councils have established Fairness Commissions over the last three years. Although they vary according to local circumstances, there are some shared characteristics. The briefing considers the context in which the commissions have been set up and how they compare with previous initiatives. We give a brief description of each of these –…
Siân Parkinson blogs on the importance of correctly mapping geographical data for local government, which can help improve impact assessments of national policies and help us better understand regional and local impact variations.
A new report from the Children’s Society highlights a reduction in the support available to people in financial crisis now that the DWP Social Fund has been replaced with Local Welfare Assistance Schemes. Laura Rodrigues explains.
On 26 June, the Government announced its second Spending Review, setting out the limits to departmental expenditure for 2015-16 and its intentions to 2017-18. As expected, the Spending Review indicates further cuts to public spending well into the next Parliament, deepening further the cuts that were announced in 2010. Within the public sector, local government…
On Tuesday 25th June, Lord Freud, Minister for Welfare Reform, provided an update to the All Party Parliamentary Local Government Group on the implementation of Universal Credit.
• The Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne will announce the outcome of his Spending Review setting out departmental spending for 2015-16 on 26 June. • He he has announced that half of the departments have settled early including the Department for Communities and Local Government (though not covering local government funding) representing a third…
The Government’s response the CLG Select Committee’s report on local authority implementation of welfare reform was published on 6 June. Among the items on which the Committee focused and expressed concerns were direct payments to tenants of housing benefit, the transfer of parts of the Social Fund to local authorities, the localisation of Council Tax…
This report is the second by the Work and Pensions on the Work Programme (WP). The report covers the WP’s performance during the first year of operations, supply chain management, and the Programme’s payments structure, but most importantly its success in helping hard to place groups. It is concluded that the WP has the potential…
* The document: Social Justice: transforming lives one year on (available here), is an update to the original document published in 2012. It is in part a progress report and in part a re-iteration of the guiding principles of the Government’s strategy for social justice. *Key to the strategy is local delivery, with civil society…
* This briefing looks at the role of, and rising pressures on, the independent not-for-profit advice sector. * It draws on a Cabinet Office Review of the sector, and other sector-based reports, to identify and update on the key social policy and financial challenges. * It highlights the advantages of local councils developing their relationship…