Briefings and responses

The ambition for a joined-up, high-quality skills system supporting young people, including those who are not in education, employment or training, employers, and local economies is welcome. We value the Government’s commitment to engage on the reforms with local government and sector partners to ensure they are practical, inclusive, and responsive to local needs.

A summary of the key announcements for councils in the 2025 Autumn Budget and the LGA's initial view.

This briefing provides the LGA view on relevant amendments tabled ahead of the Commons Report Stage.

Evidence shows that every £1 invested in supported housing prevents over £3 in NHS and social care costs and can avoid up to £47,000 per person in some cases. These savings could be recycled to sustain the licensing regime and expand supply if councils were provided with long term sustainable funding to boost supply of supported housing through commissioning. Licensing would become less cumbersome if councils were able to rely more on commissioning and contract management to take a risk based approach.

Local authorities and the communities they represent are critical to the success of local and national inclusive growth, and the delivery of much-needed infrastructure.

Councils are on the frontline of tackling and preventing homelessness, but rising demand and spiralling costs mean the system is at crisis point.

Demonstrating the support and value that councils can provide to UK Government in delivering the objectives of the Autumn Budget 2025.

Knife crime cannot be successfully tackled by dealing with supply of knives alone. Councils have shown that with adequate resources and strong relationships with partners, they can positively reduce knife crime through upstream intervention.

The complexity of local authority accounts has contributed significantly to problems with local audit. In addition, the reform of local audit will only be successful if financial reporting is simplified in order for the scale and size of audits to become more proportionate.