London Councils has welcomed a new report from the Housing, Communities and Local Government committee on the sustainability of local government finances.

Among its recommendations, the committee says reforms to the council funding system should ensure local housing costs are properly accounted for in measures of deprivation used to allocate resources.

London Councils has flagged this issue as a major concern, warning that the deprivation measures in the government’s Fair Funding Review 2.0 proposals do not fully reflect housing poverty and risk significantly underestimating levels of need in the capital. This could lead to boroughs receiving less government funding than is required to deliver vital local services and return to financial stability. London has the highest rate of poverty in the country once housing costs are factored in, with one-in-four households living in poverty.

Cllr Claire Holland, Chair of London Councils, said: “The government’s plans to reform council funding are pivotal for ensuring local areas receive funding that genuinely matches their levels of need and enables them to cope with fast-rising costs and pressures.

“It’s right that the government is targeting deprivation in the new formula, but we are concerned that the measures used in the current proposals will not sufficiently account for London’s extreme housing poverty. This could mean London is left without the funding we need to deliver vital local services and return to financial stability.

"We will continue to raise these and other issues with government and we welcome the opportunity to work with them to ensure the new funding system is fair, robust and distributes funding efficiently.”

The Association of London Directors of Children’s Services (ALDCS) have undertaken research to better understand the needs of the SEND workforce, with the recruitment and retention of Educational Psychologists (EPs) highlighted as a shared challenge nationally, with increased agency working creating unsustainable financial pressure and concerns around quality of practice.

In partnership with the London Network for the National Association of Principal Educational Psychologists, the London Innovation and Improvement Alliance (LIIA) have developed a London Pledge for Educational Psychologists (LPEP), designed to address challenges in the recruitment and retention of EPs, with a focus on embedding consistent recruitment practices in the supply and quality of agency workers.

The LPEP recognises the need for Local Authorities to respond collectively and in cooperation and seeks to

provide clear protocols and mechanisms of control, whilst also ensuring Local Authorities can respond to their own needs in times of significant pressure locally.

To celebrate 60 years of the London boroughs, each week, London Councils is sharing prevention case studies highlighting how preventative action by London boroughs is helping to save money and improve the lives of their residents.

This week, our case study is from LB Havering, whose guerrilla gardening campaign has empowered residents to keep their environment clean and free of waste.

You can read Havering's case study in full on our LinkedIn page here.