Conservative party leaders have revealed that the next Prime Minster and leader of the party will be announced on 5 September.
In successive rounds of voting, Conservative MPs will whittle the list down to two candidates by the end of next week. Then, around 160,000 party members will elect the leader in a postal ballot.

Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen has written to all the Conservative leadership hopefuls urging them to sign up to his Levelling Up pledge.
He has drawn up a five-point Levelling Up Pledge and is urging all the candidates to sign up to it and show support for levelling up and the communities the party pledged to support in the 2019 general election.

The first round of funding is available from the Brownfield Land Release Fund 2, meaning English councils will be able to bid for £40 million to deliver up to 4,000 new homes on underused brownfield sites. An additional £140 million will be allocated to councils over the next two years.
The aim of the fund is to transform disused urban areas with 17,600 new homes and to create around 54,000 jobs over the next four years.

Sadiq Khan, Mayor of London, has announced an investment of £2.3m for advice services to help Londoners cope with the cost-of-living crisis. The funding is part of £5m provided this year to help Londoners access welfare advice.
He has also launched a partnership with London Citizens Advice and London Legal Support Trust (LLST) to reach more Londoners who are finding it difficult to access help and support.

Three local government organisations have launched an outcomes-based framework to support digitalisation programmes.

People who receive support from adult social care in Leicester are being asked to help improved the design and delivery of the services.
Leicester City Council's social care and education department is part of Making it Real, a national scheme which sets out what good adult social care should look like.

As part of a national programme to end rough sleeping, people in Coventry now have a safe place to live and the chance to rebuild their lives.
Following the launch of its new specialist accommodation service, specialist housing provider Stonewater has welcomed five new customers.
A joint bid with West Midlands Combined Authority (WMCA) and Stonewater received funding from the government’s Rough Sleeping Accommodation Programme (RSAP), which allowed the housing association to buy five one-bedroom flats in Coventry city centre.

In June, the Department of Education released their list of their top 100 Apprenticeship Employers in the UK, with two county councils named in the top 100.
Somerset County Council was 67th on the list with 8.1 per cent of their employees being apprentices and 155 apprentices having started between 1 April 2021 and 31 March 2022. Durham County Council was 90th on the list - moving up from 91st last year - with 2.4 per cent of their employees being apprentices and 214 apprentices having started in the last year.

The Welsh government has announced new measures to control short-term lets, such as holiday homes listed on Airbnb.
It had already been announced that from next year, local councils will have the authority to top up council tax on second homes by 300 per cent.
As part of their co-operation agreement, first minister Mark Drakeford and Plaid Cymru leader Adam Price jointly made the announcement.

Liverpool City Council has referred itself to the data watchdog due to a potential data breach after 10,000 letters about how to claim energy rebates were sent with the wrong names on them.
New letters have been sent with instructions on how to destroy the originals.
According to the Local Democracy Reporting Service, the Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has received a referral.
As a result of the breach, the council could receive a fine or an enforcement notice.