Local Area Agreements

12.38 Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are three year agreements that set out the priorities for a local area.  The agreement is made between central Government, represented by the Government Office (GO), and a local area, represented by the lead local authority and other key partners through the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP). LAAs simplify some central funding and were designed to help join up public services more effectively and allow greater flexibility for local solutions to local circumstances.

12.39 LAAs were rolled out to all upper tier authorities in England in three “rounds”.  Pilot LAAs were used to capture the range of area based funding streams and to rationalise administration and monitoring.  In rounds 2 and 3, LAAs were expanded beyond funding streams to reflect a wider range of shared priorities and to improve the way business gets done between partners in a locality, and between that locality and Government.

12.40 The 2006 Local Government White Paper strengthened the role of LAAs and set out fundamentally different arrangements for them.  It gave a stronger role to local authorities to work with other local service providers to innovate and respond to local needs.  LAAs will also replace the multiple national performance frameworks under which local authorities have previously operated.  The major changes are being made in 2008 with the new performance framework fully in place by 2009. For more information on this framework see the Communities & Local Government Local Performance Framework Frequently Asked Questions.

12.41 Specifically the new LAAs aim to provide:

  • more emphasis on area based service delivery – stronger partnership working, consistent performance management arrangements and an improved area-based assessment (Comprehensive Area Assessment);
  • more freedom in spending decisions - a presumption against ring fencing grants unless there are strong reasons for doing so (which will be made public);
  • fewer central targets and reporting systems – only around 200 national indicators with each LAA having no more than 35 negotiated (designated) alongside 16 statutory education and early years targets;

12.42 Details of an area’s LAA can generally be found on the website of the lead local authority. For more information see the Communities & Local Government LAA web page.