What Are Local Area Agreements?
Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are a three year agreement between a local authority and central government that details the priorities that a local area will focus on and determine how various agents (including public, private, and third sector bodies) will work together through a local strategic partnership (LSP) to improve quality of life for citizens
In June 2008 every local area in England, including the 32 London Boroughs and the City of London, agreed its own set of priorities with central government. This agreement will form the basis for improving performance in key services to local residents over the three years to March 2011.
Local people can see what their council has chosen to prioritise at: www.localpriorities.communities.gov.uk
The London Narrative
The London Narrative, which was published on 28th October 2008, outlines the priorities most frequently represented in London Boroughs’ LAAs. In order to describe the impact of LAAs on London as a whole, the Narrative highlights the sum of Boroughs individual numerical targets against each priority (where applicable). The Narrative also sets out how partners intend to work together to better tackle priorities, including through Borough Peer support and using influence of the Minister for London within Government to unblock obstacles to progress.
The London Narrative challenges cover six areas - health, crime, the environment, economic prosperity and child poverty, education and communities:
- Challenge 1: Helping Londoners live longer, healthier, more independent lives
LAAs across London aim to increase life expectancy in the capital and to reduce the inequality gap in life expectancy between the worst performing areas and the population as a whole. To do this, boroughs are taking a holistic approach, tackling everything from smoking prevalence to social exclusion. Boroughs are also pledging to increase the number of people receiving self-directed support – that is, flexible support to help vulnerable people live independent lives – by an additional 15,000 people in London by 2011.
- Challenge 2: Continue to reduce crime levels
Borough partnerships will be focussing on three key priority areas – acquisitive crime, serious violent crime and adult and youth re-offending. The LAAs contain pledges to significantly reduce current crime levels in these categories.
- Challenge 3: To create an environmentally sustainable London
London will focus on cutting CO2 emissions and increasing recycling while reducing waste. Partners pledge to significantly reduce CO2 emissions in Local Authority activities, to achieve a 9.9% average reduction in borough-wide CO2 emissions over the next three years, saving nearly 2.5 million tonnes of CO2. Partnerships are also committed reducing landfill by 300,000 tonnes.
- Challenge 4: Increased prosperity and reduced child poverty in London
Borough partnerships have pledged to achieve an average increase in the employment rate of 2.8 percentage points - equivalent to 24,400 people moved into employment and to get 53,000 people off key working age benefits, with at least 11,500 of these gains made in the most deprived neighbourhoods.
Further pledges include increasing the number of people gaining basic literary and numeracy skills, and to increase level two (GCSE equivalent) skills levels.
Tackling Child Poverty remains a key issue for London. Figures show that 25% of London’s children live in poverty before housing costs. The government has pledged to abolish child poverty in a generation. Through LAAs, 11 boroughs are committed to improving on 2006/7 levels by bringing over 21,000 children out of poverty over the next three years. Other boroughs are addressing issues such as worklessness, educational attainment, skills, housing, and health, using partnership approaches to address the underlying causes.
Another strand of this challenge is providing homes for Londoners, and 22 borough partnerships have agreed to deliver almost 67,000 homes through their LAAs.
- Challenge 5: Ensuring everyone, especially young people, achieve their full potential
London has made great strides towards its aim to help every young child and young person achieve their potential, but there remain considerable inequalities in London, which partnerships are determined to address. London is focusing in particular on three key themes through LAAs to help meet this goal:
- Ensuing more young people are in education, employment or training;
- Reducing the number of teenage pregnancies;
- Improving support for the most vulnerable in society by increasing the proportion of vulnerable people achieving independent living, and boosting the number of people with learning difficulties in settled accommodation or employment.
- Challenge 6: Creating stronger, more empowered and cohesive communities
Borough partnerships have pledged to significantly increase the number of people who feel they can influence decisions in their locality over the next three years. 20 areas have also committed to helping achieve high levels of community cohesion over the next three years, with a pledge to significantly increase the number of people who feel that people from different backgrounds get on well with each other; and feel there is a sense of belonging amongst all who live in an area.
Download the London Narrative here.
Multi Area Agreements
The key difference between LAAs and Multi-Area Agreements (MAAs) is that LAAs have local focus, whilst MAAs focus on sub-regional priorities - providing a framework for cooperation for setting and achieving joint targets, in return for greater freedoms and flexibility. However, MAAs still have an implicit understanding of the local issues in order to suitably address regional issues.
Click here for more information on MAAs.
