News from ViSTA
Deliverying LAA Success
The New Local Government Network (NLGN) calls for councils to be handed greater responsibility and more incentives to drive forward Local Area Agreements (LAAs) and argues that the current system is still too inflexible for many local authorities.
In an evaluation of the latest wave of Local Area Agreements, NLGN highlights significant achievements through the process, including a more joined-up policy framework, but warns that significant logjams are preventing the system working more effectively. Publishing the research today, NLGN argues that:
- National indicators remain too ill-defined and top-down to support Local Area Agreements that are truly locally relevant and evidence-based;
- Some Government departments have not offered sufficient flexibility to their local arms to allow them to play a significant role in Local Area Agreement delivery;
- The current consultation on CAAs leaves too many questions unanswered;
- Without significant and transparent incentives or penalties accountability for LAA success is obscure;
The research, based on extensive interviews and surveys with local authorities, calls for the LAA successes to be built upon and shared around the country and proposes a number of reforms including:
- Whitehall departments should commit to the primacy of the LAA. Where central mandates and regulations interfere with LAA delivery, the Local Area Agreement should take priority;
- Statutory Local Area Agreement partners should be expected to increase the amount of funding they pool by 0.5% each year, with a ‘bonus’ to those areas showing the greatest commitment to, and use of, pooled funding;
- Councillors should play a new championing role for Local Area Agreements, either on a ward by ward, or individual indicator basis;
- Resource and reward systems should be reformed to support the LAA with LAA outcomes linked to individual performance reward grants increased use of cross-agency secondments, and LSP involvement in senior appointments;
- Where local areas are successful in delivering their priority outcomes, they should be rewarded with greater flexibility over local funding, including further reductions in ring-fencing and access to other appropriate revenue streams.
However, NLGN’s survey found that the majority of councils are satisfied with the commitment of local partners to the LAA, with most respondents rating the relationship as between 7 to 9 out of 10.
There was similar optimism about the direction of Local Area Agreements, with the majority of councils favourable when asked how ‘fully formed’ their Local Area Agreement framework is.
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