LAA Update Bulletin No 1

Local Area Agreement Update Bulletin No 1

Welcome to the first edition of a bulletin designed to keep you in touch with what is happening around the development of a new Local Area Agreement (LAA) for East Sussex. The bulletin is intended for a wide audience including Partner Organisations, Elected Members, the LAA Project Board, Team and Indicator Leads. Please circulate it to anyone else you think would find it useful.

As this is the first bulletin it will provide some basic information and links to where you can find more information in case you are not familiar with the background on the need for a new LAA. (Hyperlinks highlighted in blue will take you straight to the documentation). Future bulletins are likely to be much shorter and their frequency will depend on their being relevant information to share.

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three year contract negotiated between central government and local government setting out the priorities for a local area and how these will be tackled in partnership. The LAA also provides a way of strengthening partnerships and partnership working, pooling budgets and streamlining performance management systems. Our first LAA was due to run from 2006- 2009, but Government has required all top tier authorities to develop a new LAA by June 2008. The East Sussex Strategic Partnership (ESSP) were very unhappy with this requirement, as partners were in the middle of successfully delivering our first LAA and in the process of developing a new sustainable community strategy in an integrated way with the other LSPs  and local authorities in East Sussex. A letter was sent to the Minister of State - Hazel Blears requesting relaxation for the timetable and here is the response received from John Healey MP.

A sub group of the ESSP is acting as a Project Board for the development of the LAA and this is supported by a Project Team of Officers. The process and timetable for developing the LAA were outlined in a report to the ESSP. Since then we have had confirmation that the LAA must be submitted by 30 May 2008. This timetable is very tight and certainly not what the ESSP would have wished, in order to ensure full engagement by partners and especially the voluntary and community sector.

The LAA consists of 'up to 35' indicators drawn from the Government's National Indicator Set (NIS) of 198 indicators, plus 16 mandatory indicators originating from the Department for Schools and Families (DCSF). Local Authorities are required to monitor all 198 indicators but the LAA set of indicators will have stretching targets set against them over a three year period. Some indicators in the NIS also match with those set for other agencies such as the Police, Health and the Fire Service.

Priorities within the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) that are not able to be included in the LAA (i.e local indicators) will be included in the Action Plan for the SCS to be developed later on this year.

All of this information and more, can be accessed on the ESSP website www.essp.org by following the button ' What We Do' on the left of the homepage.

General Update

A list of draft indicators was submitted to GOSE on 28 March. The list contains 32 indicators, although there are caveats against a number of indicators that will need to be ironed out during the negotiation process. Each indicator has an identified lead officer and a corresponding Government Office (GOSE) contact, the list of indicator leads is attached in this spreadsheet . In many cases indicator development will be supported by an existing partnership or multi-agency group, for others, new contacts and links are being put in place. 

GOSE have given us inital feedback on the submitted list; this suggests that they are broadly in agreement with our list. They have two or three that they would like to see included and will engage in further debate with the Project Board and Team around these indicators. A combined meeting for the Board and Team with GOSE is being held on 14 April.

Indicator Specific

The final Guidance for the new National Indicator Set (from which the 'up to 35' LAA targets are drawn) was issued on 1 April 2008. Unfortunately for almost all indicators there are some changes from the previous draft set issued in February and CLG have not thought to track the changes between the versions. This will mean hours of additional work in checking on changes. Indicator Leads are urged to ensure that before they enter into negotiations with partners and GOSE that they are clear about any changes that may have been made since the indicator was proposed for inclusion.   Any issues created by this should flagged asap to Alison Horan alison.horan@eastsussex.gov.uk

The Government has decided to drop one indicator, NI 31 - Re-offending by registered sex offenders, and added one new indicator on play - NI  199.  185 national indicators will come into force on 1 April 2008. The remaining 13 indicators will be subject to further consultation in the summer before final definitions for them can be released. Guidance on the methodology for the Place Survey will be issued shortly.

Alison Horan
Head of Community Partnerships
01273 481381
alison.horan@eastsussex.gov.uk