Agenda item

The Commission considered a report of the Chief Executive concerning the development of a Local Area Agreement for Leicestershire.  A copy of the report marked ‘A’ is filed with these minutes.

In response to questions the Commission was advised that:-

a)      the development of the Local Area Agreement would provide:

i)       an opportunity to break down barriers and for all agencies, statutory and voluntary, to work together to achieve their own and shared priorities;

ii)      the ability to bring together a number of funding streams and to use these more flexibly.  Partners in the LAA would be able to ‘pool their funding’ so that it was part of the Agreement.  An alternative would be for partners to ‘align’ their funding to deliver the agreed priorities;

iii)     freedoms and flexibilities which it was hoped would reduce the reduce the level of bureaucracy particularly as each existing funding streams would now be monitored within the LAA framework against a smaller set of indicators;

iv)     additional pump-priming and reward money for certain ‘stretch’ targets;

b)      whilst working relationships with District Councils was good there was a need to engage the District Local Strategic Partnerships (DLSPs).  (For example DLSPs could play an important role in identifying centres in market towns and villages which could be targeted in the Agreement);

c)      whilst some of the objectives and priorities were taken from existing policies/strategies, it was hoped that by including these in the LAA the delivery of the target would be improved as a number of agencies would be involved.  In particular, the role of the voluntary sector would enable the involvement of volunteers and community groups in areas of activity where hitherto they had not been involved;

d)      a detailed delivery plan would be developed which identified how each outcome and indicator would be achieved and who would be responsible for achieving it.

With regard to the development of detailed targets and monitoring of performance, the Commission was of the view that:-

e)      in relation to each priority the targets should highlight the added-value that it was hoped would be achieved by agencies working together;

f)       consideration should be given to establishing a mechanism whereby scrutiny processes within participating agencies, particularly the County Council and District Councils, could be developed to avoid multiple scrutiny of the LAA targets.

RESOLVED

a)      That the draft outline agreement be noted and that officers be asked to have regard to the comments now made.

b)      That the final draft agreement be submitted for consideration to the Commission’s meeting on 18 January 2005.