Local Area Agreements
Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are currently voluntary, three-year agreements between central government and local authorities and their partners, which deliver national outcomes in a way that reflects local priorities.
LAAs are currently organised around four separately funded and negotiated blocks:
- Children and young people
- Safer and stronger communities
- Healthier communities and older people
- Economic development and enterprise
LAAs are now operating in all bar one of the top tier local authorities in England.
New Local Area Agreements
From April 2008, LAAs will be changing. The Department for Children, Schools
and Families is working with the Department for Communities and Local
Government and other government departments to develop and prepare for
new-style LAAs, as outlined in the 2006 local government white paper Strong
and Prosperous Communities.
Subject to the successful passage of the local government and public
involvement in health bill through parliament, LAAs will become statutory from
2008-09 onwards. They will be at the centre of a new performance framework for
local government, becoming the key delivery contract between central
government, local authorities, and their partners.
Local Area Agreements, children's trusts and the Children and Young People's Plan
The local children's trust oversees the strategic coordination and overarching strategy for improving the five Every Child Matters outcomes for children, young people and their families. The children's trust therefore plays an important role in feeding into the development of the current children and young people's block of LAAs.
Children's trusts will continue to have a vital role in coordinating the work of local partnerships. They will drive the process of identifying improvement priorities for the children and young people's theme of new LAAs, and feeding these into the wider Local Strategic Partnership which will negotiate improvement targets with central government, through Government Offices.
The Children and Young People's Plan (CYPP) will provide a key basis of discussion on the children and young people's theme. The LAA will inform the CYPP and vice versa, with the LAA containing the priorities and associated targets, and the CYPP setting the strategic context for the authority's targets and the strategies for achieving them.
Click to read more about the children's trusts and children and young people's plan.
Further information
Local
Area Agreements Guidance - Department for Communities and Local
Government (DCLG) website (March 2006)
IDeA
Local Area Agreements Toolkit: Developing the LAA - IDeA website
Evidence
of Savings, Improved Outcomes, and Good practice Attributed to Local Area
Agreements
- DCLG website
Partnerships and Local Area Agreements - DCLG website
This page was last updated on 03 August 2007
