|
Feel free to circulate this email to your colleagues and suggest that they sign up to receive it themselves. Create or manage your LGA bulletin subscriptions or read previous editions of this bulletin.
LGA Submission to the House of Commons Public Bill Committee – Procurement Bill
The LGA has responded to the Procurement Bill call for evidence issued by the House of Common’s Bill Committee in early January. Our response focuses on securing changes to the Bill based on issues raised by councils. In particular, the response notes the importance of amendments proposed by Government this week to clearly maintain the current exemptions which allow councils to collaborate and deliver services via in-house companies (vertical and horizontal exemptions). The response calls for the involvement of local government in the promised secondary legislation which will allow councils to reserve below-threshold contracts to local suppliers, SMEs, and voluntary, community and social enterprises (VCSEs).
The response also calls for the ability to specify shorter timescales to be maintained in certain circumstances and proposes a number of measures to facilitate the single digital platform. The full response will be available when all submissions have been uploaded to the GOV.UK website – we will share this with you when we’re permitted to do so.
This week, the Cabinet Office Minister, the LGA Vice-President and the Shadow Cabinet Office Minister referenced the LGA’s engagement with Government on the Procurement Bill, highlighting our concerns regarding the closure of vertical and horizontal exemptions, which have now been addressed through two Government amendments.
The Government has published an outline of the Benefits of the Procurement Bill for Prospective Suppliers to the Public Sector.
You can find an update on the Cabinet Office's official, comprehensive and centrally funded, learning and development offer for contracting authorities, including councils in the Government's 'Getting Ready for the New Procurement Act' guidance document.
Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy
The Government has announced plans to overhaul the children’s social care system. The plan, which also comes with a £200 million investment, has promised earlier help for families in crisis, strengthened local child protection teams, improvements in young people’s experience of the care system, and plans to tackle chronic staff shortages of children’s social workers.
The following consultations are now open for response until Thursday 11 May:
Please also see our LGA response to the Children’s Social Care Implementation Strategy.
'Delivering Better Value in SEND' website launched
Newton Europe and Cipfa have launched a website that provides details of the Department of Education's (DfE's) commissioned work on Delivering Better Value (DBV) in SEND. The website has been designed to be the main source of information about DBV in the SEND programme for participating local areas, system partners, parents, carers and anyone else wanting to find out about the programme. As well as general information about the programme on the main website, the DBV leads in participating local areas will be able to log in to access tools and resources. Further information (such as emerging insight) will be added to the website as the programme progresses.
Building safety – six weeks for developers to sign contract to fix unsafe buildings
The Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities (DLUHC) has announced that developers have received legally binding contracts that will commit them to pay to repair unsafe buildings. The Government has set a six-week deadline for developers to sign the legal agreements and is warning that companies who fail to sign and comply with the terms of the contract will face significant consequences.
Under the legislation to be brought forward this spring, a Responsible Actors Scheme (RAS) will be created, allowing the Secretary of State to block developers who have not signed the contract or failed to comply with its terms from carrying out development and from receiving building control approval. This will prevent them from operating as normal in the housing market for as long as they do not resolve the situation.
Local Resilience Forum (LRF) 2021/22 funding pilot evaluation
DLUHC has published findings from the evaluation of the Local Resilience Forum (LRF) funding pilot. In 2021, DLUHC provided £7.5 million of funding to Local Resilience Forums (LRFs) for one year as a pilot project to improve LRF capacity and capability, and to collect evidence on the efficacy, challenges and opportunities of the Government providing direct funding to LRFs. The evaluation shows that the pilot was well received by LRFs and has allowed them to take significant steps towards delivering new capacity and capability to support focused work on delivering improvements to specific capabilities and nationally and locally.
Smart local energy systems – independent reports on finance, policy and skills
Innovate UK has released the following three in-depth independent reports on Smart local energy systems based on project learnings:
The reports highlight evidence of how, by focusing on the specific needs of places and integrating energy at a local level, local energy systems can help the UK reach net zero faster, at a far lower cost, and with much greater energy saving than a national 'one size fits all' approach. Getting involved in local energy systems can help local authorities better control their energy costs, deliver on their commitment to net zero, and support local residents and businesses.
Travel, accommodation and venue solutions frameworks (Crown Commercial Service webinar)
Monday 6 February, 10.00am–11.30am | Online
Vodafone One Government Day – Resilience
Thursday 9 February, 9.30am–11.30am | Online
Delivering innovative local energy projects (Net Zero Go local authority insight webinar)
Wednesday 15 February, 10.00am–11.30am | Online
Cyber security for construction business resilience (YORhub webinar)
Thursday 16 February, 2:00pm | Online
LGA National Construction Conference (Leeds)
Tuesday 7 March, 9.15am–3.30pm | Horizon Leeds, 2 Brewery Wharf, Kendall Street, Leeds LS10 1JR
Procurement Reform Conference (London)
Wednesday 1 March, 8.30am–4.00pm | Queen Elizabeth II Centre, Broad Sanctuary, London SW1P 3EE
Procurement Reform Conference (Manchester)
Tuesday 14 March, 8.30am–4.00pm | Mercure Manchester Piccadilly Hotel, Portland Street, Manchester M1 4PH
Local Government Procurement Expo (LGPE) 2023
Thursday 27 April | Novotel London West (Hammersmith), International Centre, 1 Shortlands, London W6 8DR
The Social Value Conference 2023 – 'Towards a Social Value economy'
Tuesday 13–Wednesday 14 June | In person at Church House Westminster, Great Smith Street, London SW1P 3AZ
The LGA Procurement team manages several LGA webpages dedicated to your needs. Please email guy.head@local.gov.uk if you would like any information added to our webpages:
|
