The Editorial Team 
Funding and measures to widen employment support, improve local roads, protect swimming pools from rising costs and support regeneration and levelling up were among the key announcements for councils in the March Spring Budget.
A further 57,000 social homes in England will be lost to Right to Buy by the end of the decade, with no region or local authority capable of providing one-to-one replacements.
Vital telecare equipment used by nearly two million older and disabled people, as well as traffic lights and cash machines, could cease to operate unless councils get more support with preparing for the upgrade to next-generation digital networks.
People’s job prospects post-pandemic would have been better if councils and devolved authorities had been able to take the lead on supporting them, the LGA has said in response to a report on the Government’s Restart programme.
Cities can level up the country, grow the economy and tackle the climate crisis if they have the right resources and extra powers, urban leaders have said.
Costly competitions between councils vying for vital funding pots should be replaced to help realise the Government’s levelling up agenda, an LGA inquiry has found.
Councils have warned that proposed new NHS pay rises could lead to cuts to vital public health services if they are not funded, after the new public health grant settlements were published.
Some councils are ‘still not getting it right’ when it comes to preventing people from becoming homeless, according to a report from the Local Government and Social Care Ombudsman.
The Government spent 31 times more per mile maintaining motorways and A roads last year than it did on funding councils to repair crumbling local roads, according to LGA analysis.
