A charity working with people who have learning disabilities wants the Care Quality Commission to be able to inspect the way local authorities buy residential and domiciliary care. Self Unlimited says the level of fees that councils pay for such care is “dangerously low”.

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The Government has unveiled a series of measures to help local authorities deal with the problem of empty town centre shops. The move has been welcomed by the Local Government Association which had called for councils to have more powers to prevent ‘clone towns from becoming ghost towns’.

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Following on from the Policing Green Paper there has been a fundamental shift in police accountability and reporting. The focus is now on police reporting and responding to local communities rather than central government. Individual police officers have the responsibility and the discretion to tackle the issues that matter locally.

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