The government has outlined plans aimed at improving the career prospects of the domestic care workforce with training, qualifications and a clearer, care career path.
The plans will include better training for social care staff with over £50 million of funding for a new qualification. This will support up to 37,000 individuals in direct adult social care roles to enrol on the new Level 2 Adult Social Care Certificate qualification between June 2024 and March 2025.

The Mayor of London has announced that universal free school meals for primary school children will continue for the 2024-25 academic school year.
Around £140 million will be spent on the programme, which is currently delivering meals to up to 287,000 children each day and has funded more than 17 million meals already between September and Christmas.

The Local Government Association has called for Family Hubs to be extended across all councils.
The government has announced that Family Hubs are now open in 75 local authority areas.
The hubs provide a range of services in one location and act as a ‘one stop shop’ for parents and children. Staff are there to provide practical help including early language and communication development, mental health support for parents and carers, and programmes for improving children’s home development.

Mansfield has been announced as the third area to benefit from a major £400 million bespoke regeneration programme.
Mansfield will receive £20 million to improve the town centre and its connectivity, support residents in the most deprived areas access vital services and help divert young people from crime and anti-social behaviour, and ensure the town is best prepared to benefit from future investment.

The government has announced new plans to clamp down on social housing landlords who do not provide safe homes.
The Housing Secretary has launched the Awaab's Law consultation, which proposes time limits for social housing providers to address dangerous hazards like damp and mould.
The consultation proposes new legal requirements for social landlords to investigate hazards within 14 days, start fixing within a further 7 days, and make emergency repairs within 24 hours. Those who fail to take action can be taken to court and ordered to pay compensation to tenants.

More than one million additional free meals were delivered in London over Christmas.
It is estimated 1.3 million meals were delivered to families across the capital thanks to an emergency funding programme from the Mayor of London and a partnership with the Mayor’s Fund for London and The Felix Project.
Since the Free Holiday Meals programme was launched in April 2023, more than 10.1 million meals have been delivered to families during school holidays and weekends.

Andy Burnham, Mayor of Greater Manchester, has proposed a freeze the Mayor’s council tax precept for the financial year 2024/25 in an attempt to ease ongoing cost-of-living pressures on residents.
If approved, the Mayor’s precept will be frozen at £31.75 for a Band D property and £24.69 for a Band B.

Joanna Killian has been appointed as the new Chief Executive of the Local Government Association (LGA).
She is set to take up the role in March, from her current position as Chief Executive of Surrey County Council.
Killian has been chief executive of Surrey County Council, serving 1.2 million residents since 2018. She was also chief executive of Essex County Council from 2006 to 2015.

Mayor of London Sadiq Khan has committed to delivering the council homes that London needs.
The announcement comes as new government statistics show that an average of 89 council homes a week have been started in the capital between May 2016 and the end of the last financial year.
The figures also show that last year, local authorities in London started building twice as many council homes than the rest of the country combined, with nearly 11,000 new council homes started in 2022/23.
The Mayor has urged the government not to give up on council housing.

The zero emission vehicle mandate (ZEV), the government’s route to all new cars and vans being zero emission by 2035, is now law.
The zero emission vehicle mandate sets out the percentage of new zero emission cars and vans manufacturers will be required to produce each year up to 2030. Eighty per cent of new cars and 70 per cent of new vans sold in Great Britain will now need to be zero emission by 2030, increasing to 100% by 2035.