Lancashire Local Area Agreements

Lancashire Local Area Agreement document (Acrobat PDF file, 912k)

Local Area Agreements (LAAs) present an opportunity to deliver services in partnership in innovative and exciting ways for the people of Lancashire. LAAs offer the chance to think creatively to achieve the priorities that are important to Lancashire and gain freedoms to enable us to deliver national outcomes in our localities. LAAs will merge funding streams from national government to achieve this. LAAs are part of the delivery mechanism for the Government’s 10 year vision to devolve decision making and reduce the current number of targets and inspections.

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is an agreement between central and local government about priority outcomes and targets which are important in a particular authority area and will be the process through which the community strategy will be delivered. Working through the Lancashire Partnership, it brings together funding streams and encourages agencies to co-ordinate planning and will transform service delivery by working in partnership. LAAs will follow a similar approach to that adopted for Local Public Service Agreements (LPSA).

In two tier areas such as Lancashire, the County Strategic Partnership is the body that will negotiate with Government Office North West and Lancashire County Council are the accountable body who will hold the merged funding streams.

The LAA is divided into 4 blocks:

1. Safer and Stronger Communities
2. Children and Young People
3. Healthier Communities and Older People
4. Economic Development and Enterprise

Importantly, LAAs represent a delivery mechanism for Ambition Lancashire. Ambition Lancashire is a key strategy for the County and presents an holistic cross cutting vision for 2025. It has been developed through a wide ranging consultation with key organisations and the people of Lancashire and produced by the Lancashire Partnership.

LPSAs are seen as a key component of LAAs. They will become known as the reward element of LAAs and stretch targets will be selected from the LAA targets in each of the blocks which will derive Performance Reward Grant if the stretch performance is achieved.

LAAs were piloted by 21 authorities during 2004/5. A second round of LAAs was announced in April 2005. Lancashire County Council and its partners submitted a bid for inclusion in the second round. This bid was successful and negotiation of outcomes and targets with Government Office North West will start in September 2005 with a start date for the agreement of April 2006.