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Welcome to the NAG newsletter for 25 June 2021. Feel free to circulate to your colleagues.
This newsletter is now delivered through our corporate service that handles all our various e-bulletins. Manage or create a subscription - previous bulletins can now be found here.
COVID Stories
COVID Local Support Grant
The Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Thérèse Coffey MP has announced that the COVID Local Support Grant arrangements will be extended for a final time, with a further investment of £160 million, to cover the period up to 30 September. She said the temporary support is being extended beyond the planned ending of restrictions, to help families get back on their feet as the economy recovers and the vaccine rollout continues. In our statement today we welcomed this latest continuation of funding which will help councils to provide much-needed support to low income households at risk of poverty and financial hardship.
Councils made almost 6.3 million awards under the COVID Local Support Grant scheme between 1 December and 16 April. The COVID Local Support Grant is in addition to the £220 million Holiday Activities and Food (HAF) programme, which has been scaled up to cover the whole of England across the major school holidays in 2021 – including this summer.
Schools
The Department for Education (DfE) has updated the contingency framework for education and childcare settings following the Government’s announcement on enhanced response packages to tackle the Delta variant in some areas.
The contingency framework describes the principles of managing local outbreaks of COVID-19 in education and childcare settings. It covers all types of measures that settings should be prepared for, which includes those that may be recommended as part of an enhanced response area.
Eviction protection extended for businesses
The Secretary of State for Housing, Communities and Local Government, Robert Jenrick, has announced that the existing measures to protect commercial tenants from eviction will be extended to 25 March 2022. This will ensure that the sectors which are unable to open have enough time to come to an agreement with their landlord without the threat of eviction. The Government also announced that it has extended temporary insolvency measures to support businesses during the COVID-19 outbreak. Regulations are set to be laid that will mean restrictions on statutory demands and winding up petitions will remain for a further three months until 30 September 2021 to protect companies from creditor enforcement action where their debts relate to the COVID-19 outbreak.
Non-COVID stories
LGA guide to the emergency insourcing of leisure services
This guide has been written to help councils in an emergency position mobilise their leisure service. It is not intended to instruct or encourage councils to bring leisure services back in-house but instead provides appropriate tools and considerations to support the process. Councils are advised to take their own due diligence to evaluate their individual options. The guide is correct as of June 2021.
This guide follows on from the guidance note 'Options for councils in supporting leisure providers through COVID-19' (April 2020), produced by the local government association (LGA) in partnership with Community Leisure UK (CLUK) and UKactive. This sets out the impact of COVID-19 on leisure providers and the options available to councils to support their leisure operator through the crisis.
Uyghur Forced Labour and Global Solar Supply Chains
This paper focuses the solar energy industry and reveals the ways forced labour in the Uyghur Region can pervade an entire supply chain and reach deep into international markets. The report concludes that the solar industry is particularly vulnerable to forced labour in the Uyghur Region because:
- 95 per cent of solar modules rely on one primary material – solar-grade polysilicon.
- Polysilicon manufacturers in the Uyghur Region account for approximately 45 per cent of the world’s solar-grade polysilicon supply.
UK Infrastructure Bank
The UK Infrastructure Bank has begun operating in an interim form and is open for business. The Bank which is owned and backed by the taxpayer, will support and enable private and public investment in infrastructure, with core objectives to help tackle climate change, particularly meeting our net zero emissions target by 2050, and to support regional and local economic growth. The UKIB will be headquartered in Leeds and will support projects the whole of the UK, including those led by councils.
Climate Change
A local path to net zero
A local path to net zero is the LGA's campaign that highlights the significant role of councils in advancing the UK’s net zero ambitions and our offer to government in the lead up to COP26. You can find a calendar of events and a range of videos by councils and industry experts talking about local leadership and innovative climate activity.
Crown Commercial Service – June Update
Carbon Net Zero
To help you with your Carbon Net Zero journey CCS have launched a new web page. It is packed with information on how procurement can help you reach your Carbon Net Zero goals, plus a handy glossary of terms for all things Carbon Net Zero and smart solutions.
Crown Commercial Service launches new Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Workday to help accelerate public sector innovation
CCS have announced that they have announced a new Memorandum of Understanding with Workday, a leading provider of enterprise cloud applications for finance and human resources.
Framework updates
Find out which frameworks were extended, expired or awarded in May in the CCS monthly update.
Supporting local enterprise and innovation
CCS have developed guidance to share with your local enterprise partnerships to help local businesses know how to get started if they’d like to supply to the public sector..
Webinars
London Councils - Net Zero Strategy: how local government can turbocharge delivery – 2 July 2021
With the Net Zero Strategy, COP26 and the Spending Review on the horizon, this event brings together the voice of local authority leaders to set out their ambitions and the support they need to achieve them, as well as hearing from senior officials on their vision of local authorities’ role.
Speakers will discuss the role of local authorities as a sustainable delivery route to implement climate policies, as a force to accelerate a just transition, and their role in building green skills and jobs.
LGA Annual Conference – 6-8 July 2021
Our Annual Conference 2021 is now less than two months away and is being held virtually again this year and it has been agreed will be FREE for all member councils this year.
From Tuesday 6 to Thursday 8 July, attendees will have the opportunity to hear from leading central and local government politicians, as well as expert speakers from within and outside the sector.
Booking is now open on our website for this year's annual conference. Please share and promote the conference to your contacts and encourage them to sign up and read more about this year's Annual Conference.
Public benefit partnerships for children's services – 8 July 2021
With a mixture of case studies and expert commentary, this webinar will explore alternative ways of developing service provision that can provide better services and better value for the public purse. Participants will learn about the ground-breaking Children's Innovation Partnership created by Leicestershire County Council and Barnardo's and the work of Kibble, one of the UK's most successful social enterprises, supporting children with their unique approach to partnership.
LGA Modern slavery webinar – 14 July 2021
Modern slavery is a heinous crime which is sadly occurring in places up and down the country – the LGA is hosting a webinar aimed specifically at councillors but open to anyone looking for an introduction to the issue and councils' role in tackling it. The session will hear from the Independent Anti-Slavery Commissioner Dame Sara Thornton, as well as from officers and groups directly involved in working to eradicate slavery. Please pass this on to the relevant councillors in your authorities.
Design in the Public Sector: Green procurement - 16 July 2021
This is the third in a series of four webinars, run by the LGA in partnership with the Design Council, as part of the Design in the Public Sector's Climate Change programme 2020/21. The webinar will showcase how design skills can be used to approach the everyday challenges we face and provide councils with a platform to share their insights and experiences of tackling climate challenges through green and sustainable procurement – with speakers discussing the procurement of sustainable timber in their Home Grown Homes projects, the carbon reducing impact of the electrification of their vehicle fleet, how a council has developed their own sustainable procurement strategy and the launch of the LGA's Sustainable Procurement toolkit.
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