The government has announced up to £150,000 of funding for public libraries to support the National Year of Reading

The Welsh Government will provide an extra £30.9 million to local authorities to deliver regeneration projects across Wales.
Since it launched in 2020, the Welsh Government’s Transforming Towns programme has awarded more than £484 million in grant and loan funding to support regeneration across Wales. This extra funding brings the total investment for 2025/26 to £56.3 million.

New statistics show that £7.53 billion has been saved thanks to a crackdown on public sector fraud.
The Counter Fraud Function has been working on prevention, recovery, and enforcement. Uniting specialists from across government, the Function works to identify and dismantle fraud across the public sector.
Working with local authorities and using data-matching tools like the National Fraud Initiative (NFI), fraudulent claims have been identified, by comparing records across the public sector.

Two developers have been selected to transform two industrial areas of Sheffield into new neighbourhoods with up to 1,300 new homes.
Sheffield City Council and Homes England have appointed Capital&Centric and Great Places Housing Group to jointly develop a neighbourhood at Furnace Hill and igloo Regeneration will work at Neepsend.
At Furnace Hill, a new neighbourhood including around 750 new homes, one third affordable, one third for home ownership, and one third for build-to-rent.

The Green Party's Hannah Spencer has won the Gorton and Denton by-election, taking the seat from Labour and recording the party's first ever Westminster by-election victory.
Labour won with a majority of more than 13,000 in the 2024 general election and this is the first time in nearly 100 years that Gorton will not be represented by a Labour MP. The result is the sixth largest Labour majority to be overturned at a by-election since the Second World War.

The government has published new guidance to help local authorities crack down on waste crime.
New statistics have revealed that there were 1.26 million incidents of fly-tipping last year.
Government guidance will, for the first time, advise local authorities how to seize and crush vehicles used to dump waste.

Councils and organisations working to tackle homelessness and rough sleeping are to receive £50 million of government funding.
The money will be split across two major programs - the Ending Homelessness in Communities Fund and the Long-Term Rough Sleeping Innovation Programme.
The government is working to halve long-term rough sleeping by the end of this parliament.

The Environment (Principles, Governance and Biodiversity Targets) (Wales) Bill has passed through the Senedd.
The Bill establishes a new framework for environmental protection, creating an independent watchdog and empowering Welsh Ministers to set legally binding biodiversity targets.
Through the new legislation, an independent body responsible for holding public authorities to account on environmental law will be set up - the Office of Environmental Governance Wales.
This body will scrutinising the Welsh Government, Natural Resources Wales and local authorities.

Homes England has opened the bidding process for its Social and Affordable Homes Programme 2026-2036 (SAHP).
Registered providers are encouraged to bid for grant support from at least £27 billion fund worth of funding.
The programme has been designed to accelerate the delivery of hundreds of thousands of new homes for social rent, affordable rent and shared ownership.

The government has announced that councils struggling to balance their books will be granted financial flexibility by the government to ensure they can continue to provide vital community services.
Subject to meeting conditions, some local authorities will be issued support, through Exceptional Financial Support. This will allow them to use their capital funding, including receipts from sales and borrowing, to cover day-to-day costs.