Local Area Agreement

What is a Local Area Agreement?

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three-year agreement between partners and central government. It is designed to improve local services and increase economic prosperity for local people. The three-year ‘deal’ sets out the priorities and targets agreed by all partner organisations in Suffolk, represented on the SSP. This will be Suffolk’s second Local Area Agreement (LAA2).

Why do we have an LAA?

Under the Local Government and Public Improvement in Health Act 2007 all local authorities in England have a duty to work with partners to develop an LAA. In two tier areas such as Suffolk, the County Council is the lead authority and is accountable for the LAA, but district and borough councils must be involved at all stages. It also places a duty on specific named partners to co-operate in the preparation of the LAA and to have regard to it in their everyday functions within their own organisation.

What is the duty to co-operate?

Named partners are required to clearly establish the link(s) between all LAA targets that relate to them in their relevant business planning and performance management processes. It also requires LAA targets to be proportionately reflected within individual partners local, regional or sub-regional resource allocations.

Suffolk has a strong history of effective partnership working and many partners are already involved in a wide range of partnership activities across the county which support the achievement of LAA targets. In these circumstances, the duty is just a formalisation of these arrangements.

How do we deliver this vision?

Suffolk’s LAA will form part of the action plan for delivering the community strategy priorities. LAA focuses on a small number of priorities which will deliver specific elements of the long term vision. It does this by translating the long-term (20 year) ambitions set out in the community strategy into short-term (3 year) targets that will help us deliver improvements in local services. The community strategy priorities are much wider than LAA alone and there are a number of other partnership and organisational activities that will also contribute to this agenda.

What’s in Suffolk’s LAA?

Suffolk’s Local Area Agreement reflects the issues and priority areas where we are either already performing well but want to improve even further or, where there is an evidenced need for improvement. Suffolk’s LAA is slim and practical. It contains 28 targets chosen from a national ‘menu’ of 189 National Indicators, as well as 10 locally developed targets which capture priority areas not in the ‘menu’ but are pertinent to Suffolk. It also includes 7 statutory children and early years targets which are directed by central government.

How do we fund LAA?

Unlike previous rounds of LAA there is no dedicated funding for LAA2. It has been replaced with an Area Based Grant which is paid directly to county and district/borough councils to be spent on locally determined priorities. It is part of each council’s overall budget, and funding to support LAA priorities and activities will need to be determined locally. In Suffolk there is a commitment to collectively achieve LAA targets and this should be reflected in all partners using their budgets to help delivery these.

What are the benefits of LAA?

LAAs give local areas more freedom and flexibility to work towards priorities identified by local people rather than being centrally prescribed by government. They provide a dramatic reduction in the number of performance measures against which areas are assessed (from over 1200 to approx. 200) and gives areas greater flexibility to spend money how and where it is needed locally, removing much of the red tape.

What will success look like?

The Local Area Agreement itself is a written agreement. It represents the opportunity for partner organisations to work together to achieve common priorities over a three-year period. It will allow us to work more flexibly and innovatively looking outwards to communities rather than inwards to central government. Success will not only be about achieving the targets, but making real improvements on the ground in areas that we know matter to local people.

© 2010 Suffolk Strategic Partnership. All rights reserved.
Privacy Policy / Dispute and Compliants Procedure / Equality Policy
Accessibility and Site Help / Site Map