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Welcome to the NAG newsletter for 2 July 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 - or read previous bulletins.
COVID Stories
£250 million for adult social care
The Government announced that people in care homes or those being cared for at home will benefit from additional financial support to continue to protect them from COVID-19 transmission. This new funding will be a continuation of Infection Control and Testing Fund, which was due to expire at the end of the month and will now last until the end of September.
Indemnity support
In a written statement to Parliament on indemnity in care settings the Minister of State for Care announced the extension of the Designated Settings Indemnity Support (DSIS), which offers state-backed indemnity arrangements to care homes registered, or intending to register, as "Designated Settings", and which are unable to obtain sufficient insurance cover. The Minister confirmed it will now be extended until 30 September 2021. The Government will review the scheme support ahead of the end-date.
Testing arrangements for education settings
DfE has confirmed that regular asymptomatic rapid testing will stay in place until the end of the summer term. Regular testing will then pause over the summer, except for educational settings that remain open such as summer schools. DfE also confirmed that education settings should use the online reordering platform to place orders for further test kits to enable testing over the summer holidays. The guidance for children in year 6 and below remains the same and DfE will not be advising them to test. DfE will provide all schools and colleges with refreshed guidance, test kits, and PPE so that they can set up on-site Asymptomatic Test Sites (ATS) from the start of the autumn term for the first few tests to be undertaken at school, before reverting to at-home testing. Test kits for ATS will be delivered from Tuesday 29 June to Friday 23 July. More information is available on the school and college document sharing platform.
MHCLG Sales, Fees and Charges compensation scheme
MHCLG are currently running checks on returns for round three of the 2020/21 Sales, Fees and Charges (SFC) compensation scheme, with the intention of making the final payment under the 2020/21 SFC Scheme in July. MHCLG aim to go live with the claims form for the 2021/22 Quarter 1 SFC Scheme at the end of July. If you have any questions or issues about the extended scheme, please contact SalesFeesChargesScheme@communities.gov.uk.
Non-COVID stories
Toolkit to help prevent modern slavery in small businesses
The toolkit, jointly developed by STOP THE TRAFFIK and Shiva Foundation, seeks to provide practical guidance for small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) on how they can prevent modern slavery in their business operations.
The toolkit has practical steps on how your SME suppliers can assess their company’s risks; mitigate the risks affecting their employees and their agency staff as well as how the report and remedy any incidents. Please feel free to pass this on to your SME suppliers and networks.
Funding
Catch-up premium funding
The National Association for Independent Schools and Non-Maintained Special Schools (NASS) has asked us to remind councils to forward the catch-up premium grant allocated for the 2020/21 academic year to local schools. This funding is provided to support educational and wellbeing ‘catch-up’ for pupils with an Education, Health and Care (EHC) plan or Special Educational Needs (SEN) support that those local authorities fund within an independent special setting.
The Education and Skills Funding Agency (ESFA) has delivered the allocated grant to councils, who are responsible for passing the correct allocations on to schools - £240 per pupil with an EHC plan or SEN support - as stated under the Coronavirus catch-up premium grant conditions 2020/21 for local authorities. Each local authority will be required to certify to ESFA that they have complied with these terms and conditions.
Community Justice Fund
Government have invested an additional £2 million in the Community Justice Fund (CJF), which provides legal help to those who have lost their job, been caught in rent arrears, or who have built up debt because of COVID-19. The CJF is a joint initiative between leading social justice organisations including Advice UK, Law Centres Network, Citizens Advice, the AB Charitable Trust, Indigo Trust, and Paul Hamlyn Foundation.
Webinar of the week
LGA 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 mitigating the risks of climate change in our communities, Procurement and commissioning has an integral role to play in reducing our carbon emissions, and meeting our Net Zero targets and this webinar will be showcasing some of the great work councils are doing to achieve this along with unveiling our own Sustainable Procurement Toolkit.
Webinars
Department for Education Social Work Reform – Early Market Engagement Events
6 and 7 July 2021
These events will be focussing on the design and delivery of the Child and Family Social Worker CPD Leadership Programme (6 July) and focussing on the design and delivery of the Assessed and Supported Year in Employment (7 July).
We would be keen to hear the views of local authorities, SME and VCS organisations already delivering or involved in these areas, so please feel free to share this information with relevant partners.
Please contact DfE.CFSWLEADERSHIP@education.gov.uk if you wish to attend, no later than 12.00pm on 5 July 2021.
Department for Education – Capital Funding Programme Engagement Day
7 July 2021
The Department for Education is considering a new capital funding programme to aid local authorities to establish or develop current children’s home placements, with the goal of improving provision to meet the needs of young people in their care.
The Department is holding the second of its engagement days to share initial plans around this capital funding opportunity.
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
Localis/Social Value UK – transparency in the procurement world
9 July 2021
The Green Paper for Transforming Public Procurement sets out to promote value and transparency at the expense of red-tape. As a principle of public procurement, transparency is to be enshrined in law - alongside value for money, the public good, integrity, efficiency, fair treatment of suppliers and non-discrimination.
This webinar will explore the role transparency has to play in the process, how can its optimal use deliver operationally for the benefit of communities in their environments, local services and amenities and assisting local economies in recovery efforts?
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.
The role of local authorities in electric vehicle charging infrastructure
15 July 2021
This webinar will present the findings of recent LGA commissioned research into the role of local authorities in electric vehicle (EV) charging, focussing particularly on on-street provision, and will set out an overview of current activity and best practice, views of the sector, barriers and how these might be overcome and recommended next steps.
The focus of the research is on the strategic role of Local Authorities in EV infrastructure delivery considering issues such as; transition to net zero; the scale and pace of change; expectations of the market
LGA Annual Conference
6-8 July 2021
There is still time to sign up to this year's annual conference. Please share and promote the conference to your contacts.
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