Scrutiny

Hot Topics

30 Jun 2026

Time For Rural?

Time For Rural?

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09 Jun 2026

Social Housing Bill Begins Lords Scrutiny

Social Housing Bill Begins Lords Scrutiny

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22 Sep 2025

Kerry Booth: Why Fair Funding Matters for Rural Councils

Kerry Booth, Chief Executive of the Rural Services Network, was recently invited to contribute a blog reflecting on the funding challenges faced by rural councils. We are pleased to share...

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04 Aug 2025

Living in Rural England? Help Inform Future Utility Decisions

The Rural Services Network is encouraging rural residents to take part in important new research from Rural England CIC – and to help share it across their communities before the...

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16 Jun 2025

Rural Housing Emergency

Affordable Housing Need 50% Greater in Rural Areas, Report Reveals England’s rural communities are experiencing an affordable housing crisis of unprecedented scale, with the need for affordable homes is more...

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09 Jun 2025

NAO Highlights Weaknesses in Developer Contributions System

A recent report from the National Audit Office (NAO) highlights significant weaknesses in the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government’s (MHCLG) developer contributions system in England — a key...

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09 Jun 2025

Spending Review: £1bn Call to Tackle Bus Service Gaps

Campaign for Better Transport is calling for an additional £1 billion a year for buses as its analysis reveals four out of every ten wards in England and Wales (3,003...

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14 Oct 2024

Benefits Processing

The Benefits Processing analysis within the Performance Benchmarking section on the RSN website has now been updated to Quarter 4 2023/24.  The speed of processing is a measure of the...

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04 Oct 2024

Council Tax Collection Rate

These analyses present National Statistics on the collection rates of council tax and non-domestic rates by local authorities.  The in-year collection rate is the amount of council tax (or non-domestic...

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27 Sep 2024

Planning Turnaround

Development Management – Planning Analysis This development management analysis includes consideration of turnaround times for processing planning applications.  These traditional performance measures, long collected by the Government to measure success...

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