Shropshire's Local Area Agreement

Shropshire County Council was chosen as one of the 66 areas to enter into a Local Area Agreement (LAA) from April 2006 to March 2009. The first draft of the agreement was subject to negotiations with the Government Office for the West Midlands (GOWM) and has recently undergone its first annual refresh. As one of its key local partners, Bridgnorth District Community Partnership was involved in developing some of the 30 - 40 LAA targets with the County Council which formed the basis of negotiations with Central Government.

What is a Local Area Agreement?

A Local Area Agreement is a formal contract between central and local government based on a set of agreed priorities and targets for improving the quality of life for local people. At present a 'local area' is defined by local authority boundaries, together with the local strategic partnership and other key partners at local level. LAAs are designed to give local authorities and their partners the flexibility to find local solutions to local problems, and to decide where they want to put their resources in order to achieve the improvements they've signed up to.

How does a Local Area Agreement work?

Essentially, a LAA helps simplify the funding which comes down from central government. Partners match or pool some of their budgets and make joint decisions on how they should be used to acheive their targets. In practice this means that partners such as local authorities, the police and Primary Care Trust have the flexibility to put resources into joint initiatives. Ultimately this should be more efficient as there will be fewer funding streams which should result in less bureaucracy and simplified monitoring and auditing.

Authorities have been able to negotiate specific freedoms and flexibilities with their Government Office to help them acheive their 'stretch targets' (where there is committment to delivering measureable stretched performance over three years) as well as also receiving a Pump Priming Grant (PPG) for this purpose. Successful delivery of the stretch targets at the end of the LAA will attract the Performance Reward Grant (PRG).

What is Shropshire's Local Area Agreement like?

Shropshire's LAA has been designated a 'single plot Local Area Agreement' which means it is not required to group either outcomes or funding streams under the four LAA blocks (Children and young people, Healthier communities and older people, Safer and stronger communities and Economic development and enterprise) and has freedom to spend any funding on the acheivement of any of the outcomes agreed as part of the LAA. To view a copy of Shropshire's Local Area Agreement, 2006-2009, please click here