New funding has been introduced for councils to extend support to care leavers, worth £51 million.

Labour has said that plans for voters to show photo ID before in future elections will cost around £40 million in extra government spending over a decade.

One-third of the UK population is now represented by councils aiming to reach net-zero emissions at least five years ahead of the 2050 commitment.

Housing Minister Christopher Pincher has announced that a new national design code is being tested across 14 areas in England.
The code gives local planning authorities a toolkit of design principles to consider for new developments, such as street character, building type and façade as well as environmental, heritage and well-being factors. It is intended to provide councils with the guidance and parameters to shape new developments in a way which reflects what their communities truly want.

A pioneering partnership will work with local authorities to engage inventive companies in developing and deploying new services.

A green initiative aimed at encouraging hundreds of thousands of children to walk to school has received £2.1 million in government support.
Transport Minister Chris Heaton-Harris said that the funding will help walking charity Living Streets extend its Walk to School Outreach programme to more than 1,000 primary schools across the country.

The single-use carrier bag charge has increased from 5p to 10p and been extended to all businesses in England.
The government says that the charge has seen a 95 per cent cut in plastic bag sales in major supermarkets since 2015 and the move will help drive down sales further. Research also indicates that before the 5p bag charge was introduced, the average household used around 140 single-use plastic carrier bags a year, and this has now been reduced to four.

A new report has warned that councils, businesses and communities could be losing out on vital financial support from central government.
The report, Supporting local communities and people: are local government grants effective?, published by CIPFA and Capita, highlights the complex landscape of local government grant funding.

£118 million for disadvantaged pupils could be lost from school budgets this year due to a change in how Pupil Premium funding is calculated.