Our Mission

• Frequently Asked Questions

What are the differences between a LAA and a Local Public Service Agreement (LPSA)?

The drivers of the two initiatives are not that different – they both focus on a new dialogue between central and local government, using the language of “outcomes”. The rules and rewards, however, are different. LAAs require funding streams being identified and re-aligned to address agreed local and national priorities. Second generation LPSAs stretch performance in priority areas and have reward grant associated with achieving the agreed targets. The stretch performance targets (LPSA targets) will now be part of the LAA.

What is the contribution expected of council leaders to the success of Local Area Agreements (LAAs)?

The Government sees LAAs as a significant step towards greater devolution and stronger leadership of local communities. Making long-term improvements in quality of life, involves tough choices and sustained focus on what really matters to people. Bringing local partners together requires goodl leadership skills. Locally elected politicians are crucial in bringing together leadership and accountability to the LAA initiative.

Local Area Agreements (LAAs) consist of bringing together the main public services in an area, and re-focussing their efforts and resources on three high-level thematic priorities. What if some of the ‘key players’ are relectant to get involved? Who sorts this out?

The Government expects those agencies responsible for managing the key services within the LAA framework to work collectively, to make a success of the pilots. The policy framework works across-Government, not just from the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister (ODPM), and is linked closely to the Treasury’s wider moves to devolve and streamline decision-making.

Government Offices (GOs) will be taking a more proactive stand in helping to resolve any issues with commitment and involvement, refering to Whitehall and the relationships between agencies and tiers in a locality. The LGA will also help broker any differences of view. But the main responsibility for success inevitably rests with local partners. There are no new statutory ‘duties to cooperate’ involved.

It is unclear as to which funding streams will form part of the Local Area Agreement (LAA) pilots. Is there a risk that LAAs will re-shape the periphery of public service expenditure, but not the mainstream?

Where the locality can demonstrate that integrating or influencing other funding streams would help to make a real difference to national and local targets, then the argument for their inclusion should be made – initially to GOs, as part of the LAA negotiations. First, map what happens at present. Second, provide evidence on how change in funding regimes would bring real benefits. Pilots offer the opportunity to test out such changes.

I like the idea of our Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) developing a real overview of the totality of public expenditure across the locality, but has anyone ever mapped out what happens at present?

No they probably have not. Detailed mapping work, of the complex streams of public expenditure that make their way down from central Government to local people, has only ever been carried out in a few areas of the country. However, several councils, and GOs have produced detailed exercises with results, which the ODPM is now circulating. At the present time, it is more important for the pilot LAAs to build up a picture of current central and local funding. Gaining better oversight and clearer influence over current arrangements is part of what LAAs are about.

We are currently piloting a Local Area Agreement (LAA), but our capacity for policy, partnership, and multi-agency delivery work is very stretched. Will the deregulatory aspects of the LAA initiative free up staff resources, and usher in a new way of working?

It is important that local authorities and their partners can identify where major workload savings can be made, while working within a framework of simplified and integrated funding streams. This is likely to include: staff currently engaged on planning and drafting strategies; servicing performance monitoring regimes; preparation of returns to Whitehall departments and GOs; and the auditing of returns.

There is the separate issue that people with the skills and experience, in working across different public sector agencies with broad-based outcomes that cut across traditional service disciplines, are few and far between. But LAA pilots provide a good opportunity for inter-agency secondments, and for pooling skills in new and innovative ways.

The Office of the Deputy Prime Minister's (OPDM) prospectus does not mention any additional funding for pilot councils, to help them initially. Is there any?

No pump-priming funding is available for the LAA (except for the stretch targets - see below). The LGA and the IDeA are looking at whether funding from the national capacity-building programme could be used to help. Councils may want to think about how LPSA pump-priming funding, as well as reward funding in the long term, could help contribute towards a successful LAA.

What pump-priming funding is available for the LPSA2 (stretch targets) element of the LAA?

The intention is that the pump-priming grant will be paid in one go with the first monthly instalment of LAA pooled funding, i.e.at the end of April 06. The Government is still working through the detail of payment systems, so it's not yet clear whether the grant will be split between blocks, paid with the money for one block, or could be paid separately. However early payment for this financial year is unfortunately not possible.

What reward money is available for the stretch targets (the "PSA" part of the agreement)?

The Performance Reward Grant for achieving agreed stretch targets is around £1,270,150 per target.  We have 12 reward targets in all.  The reward grant is paid on achievement of the agreed performance.

In addition there is pump-priming money to help develop the identified projects.  This amounts to £1.373m.

When will reward grant be paid?

The intention is that the grant will be paid in one go with the first monthly instalment of LAA pooled funding, i.e. at the end of April 06 (see also Guidance para 150). Departments are still working through the detail of payment systems, so it's not yet clear whether e.g. the grant will be split between blocks, paid with the money for one block, or could be paid separately. As for timing however, early payment for this financial year is unfortunately not possible.

Locally the Leicestershire Together Board has agreed that any award grant paid will come into a central "pot" for allocation against agreed priorities at the time.

Local Area Agreements (LAAs) may now provide greater coordination between central and local government and their partners, but how do local community groups and residents fit into this?

A key point of LAAs is that a ‘one size fits all’ approach, to the delivery of public services, has its limitations. Top-down Government targets can also conflict with what local people would set as their priorities if given the opportunity. LAAs mean moving away from a ‘Whitehall knows best’ culture. Local authorities and their partners –including the voluntary and community sector – will need to find new and better ways of ensuring that bottom-up outcomes and targets for a LAA have real meaning for local people.

Local Strategic Partnerships (LSPs) are being given a key role in delivering LAAs. The LSPs in our area is largely a 'talking shop', where the community sector has little influence on its work. How can we improve this situation and make it work?

Take part in honest discussion with all partners as to why your LSP is no more than a talking shop. Has it got bogged down in bureaucracy and process? Is there evidence of ‘partnership fatigue’, where LSP members are spending too much time addressing the same issues at different partner bodies? Are local politicians reluctant to explore difficult and potentially unpopular issues and choices in such an open setting? Something as simple as a different format and structure for meetings, with more advance notice to community sector participants of the themes to be discussed, could help.

Partnership work already consumes a lot of my time and capacity. How am I meant to cope with yet more meetings?

It should soon mean less, but more focused, meetings. The thinking behind LAAs recognises that partnership bodies have tended to proliferate in local areas. This is not least because each Whitehall department has tended to create its own version of local partnership machinery.  LAA pilots involve rationalising, and joining up these arrangements. The aim is to achieve one unified dialogue, between all the main partners in the area and central government, mediated through the relevant GO.

Most of the Government funds in the Local Area Agreement (LAA) prospectus seem to come via local government. Are there any funds that are directed through other public sector agencies, and might those of my own agency be affected?

Most of the Government funding streams identified so far, as potentially suitable for integration within a pilot LAA, are the various ‘area-based initiative’ budgets that are currently allocated to individual local authority areas. However, other funds are involved, and more may be added.  If a locality can present a good case for including a specific funding stream within a pilot LAA framework, it will then be reviewed. Some Health service funding and elements of Police Basic Command Unit (PBCU) funding are likely candidates. The test will be whether such ear-marked funds would have more impact, and be used more cost-effectively, if treated as part of an integrated budget steered and directed at local, rather than national level.

Within a Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), there are those with some form of electoral mandate or democratic accountability, and those appointed or employed to run various local arms of the public sector. How is this mixed accountability going to work, if bigger decisions are to be made about integrating and pooling scarce resources?

This is acknowledged as one of the key dilemmas in developing more local-based forms of governance and public service delivery within the UK system. Ultimately, all local public sector partners involved in a LAA pilot remain accountable to their various parent bodies, whether this is the Strategic Health Authority or the Department of Health, the local Police Authority or the Home Office, governmental departments or ministers.  

Local councillors have a democratic mandate on which to base those difficult decisions on what is best for long-term public interest in an area. Appointees to eg, health trusts or chief executives of public sector agencies, may find it harder at times. But decisions on rationing and allocating scarce resources are made by separate local agencies every day, often without much attempt to assess their overall impact on the locality. LAA  pilots are a start in trying to get a better take on the totality of public expenditure in an area.