Local Area Agreements are the best chance councils have had to balance local and national priorities, claims Rob Whiteman
The challenges of the coming year are considerable, not least, setting budgets to reflect councils’ ambitions while covering material pressures.
But, we should reflect that, for local government, the glass of 2008 is very much half full. There is widespread recognition, exemplified by the prime minster at the parliamentary liaison committee in December, that for public service reform to go ‘wider and deeper’, the requirement is for concerted joined-up delivery with more attention to innovative local solutions, now that many baseline outputs have improved over the last decade.
The considerable investment in health, education, and law and order have led to better performance indicators, but underlying social exclusion remains difficult to penetrate. So, new tools are required.
Our experience in local government is that often there is no sole or quick intervention which guarantees success in helping people turn around their lives. We know there is a need for medium-term solutions where success comes from packages which address housing, health, attainment, skills, behaviour and issues that are symptomatic of economic deprivation, such as teenage pregnancy or young people not in education, employment or training.
The new wave of Local Area Agreements (LAAs), in the context of the new performance framework for local government, are our best opportunity for decades to balance local priorities and the key national priorities that best reflect our local vision for renewal.
Although much remains to be done to deliver the spirit of this new order, the commitment from Whitehall, both from ministers and officials, is considerable, and deserves acknowledgement, as does the role of the LGA to place local government at the heart of the next wave of public service improvement.
Over the next few years, success will still, in part, be measured by sustaining better outputs, but delivering qualitatively-better outcomes will give local agencies and partnerships an even greater opportunity.
Our hope is that this is the start of a process which, in time, matures to greater devolution within a ‘whole of government’ system of equal partners. But, there remain several big issues to get right in the coming year to set the correct foundation. First, to ensure that every Local Strategic Partnership sets out the compelling vision or ‘story of place’, based on engagement, community leadership and priorities derived from resource trade offs. Second, that government offices have appropriate capability to ensure meaningful negotiations which avoid the fait accompli approach of the past. And third, that by the summer, Whitehall is content that key national priorities will be delivered while our sector grows in confidence as we each focus on the most relevant interventions for our area.
There are real risks to success. It is a tall order that all LAAs are delivered to one timescale, and we must hope the government offices are given space to take a pragmatic approach to targeting and phasing their role.
LAAs must not be inappropriately rushed through and so run the risk that parties do not believe they will be delivered. In all other settings, we put great effort up front to get contracts right.
So, ideally, we should not sign off LAAs and only then work out how to deliver them.
Of course, we want to stretch key deliverables. But help from the sector or regulators would surely be better identified up front as part of the negotiations. After all, in relation to sticky social exclusion indicators, it is often not that councils are failing to adopt known best practice, but rather that successful best practice does not yet exist. Support to develop innovation and ‘next practice’ should be as much a part of LAA negations as signing up to targets.
So, 2008 must see our sector equipping regional improvement and efficiency partnerships to orchestrate the support and innovation needed by us from all improvement partners.
Naturally, nobody pretends this new destination is easily achieved, but neither should we doubt the prize that it will achieve better outcomes for our communities.
In retrospect, CPA impacted on local government and improved our focus on service improvement. In the next five years, the new CAA regime will have a similar impact and change the way we work through partnership and engagement on an area basis.
But the key to our individual and collective success very much rests on how well we exploit the potential of new LAAs in the coming year.
Rob Whiteman is chief executive of Barking & Dagenham LBC
But, we should reflect that, for local government, the glass of 2008 is very much half full. There is widespread recognition, exemplified by the prime minster at the parliamentary liaison committee in December, that for public service reform to go ‘wider and deeper’, the requirement is for concerted joined-up delivery with more attention to innovative local solutions, now that many baseline outputs have improved over the last decade.
The considerable investment in health, education, and law and order have led to better performance indicators, but underlying social exclusion remains difficult to penetrate. So, new tools are required.
Our experience in local government is that often there is no sole or quick intervention which guarantees success in helping people turn around their lives. We know there is a need for medium-term solutions where success comes from packages which address housing, health, attainment, skills, behaviour and issues that are symptomatic of economic deprivation, such as teenage pregnancy or young people not in education, employment or training.
The new wave of Local Area Agreements (LAAs), in the context of the new performance framework for local government, are our best opportunity for decades to balance local priorities and the key national priorities that best reflect our local vision for renewal.
Although much remains to be done to deliver the spirit of this new order, the commitment from Whitehall, both from ministers and officials, is considerable, and deserves acknowledgement, as does the role of the LGA to place local government at the heart of the next wave of public service improvement.
Over the next few years, success will still, in part, be measured by sustaining better outputs, but delivering qualitatively-better outcomes will give local agencies and partnerships an even greater opportunity.
Our hope is that this is the start of a process which, in time, matures to greater devolution within a ‘whole of government’ system of equal partners. But, there remain several big issues to get right in the coming year to set the correct foundation. First, to ensure that every Local Strategic Partnership sets out the compelling vision or ‘story of place’, based on engagement, community leadership and priorities derived from resource trade offs. Second, that government offices have appropriate capability to ensure meaningful negotiations which avoid the fait accompli approach of the past. And third, that by the summer, Whitehall is content that key national priorities will be delivered while our sector grows in confidence as we each focus on the most relevant interventions for our area.
There are real risks to success. It is a tall order that all LAAs are delivered to one timescale, and we must hope the government offices are given space to take a pragmatic approach to targeting and phasing their role.
LAAs must not be inappropriately rushed through and so run the risk that parties do not believe they will be delivered. In all other settings, we put great effort up front to get contracts right.
So, ideally, we should not sign off LAAs and only then work out how to deliver them.
Of course, we want to stretch key deliverables. But help from the sector or regulators would surely be better identified up front as part of the negotiations. After all, in relation to sticky social exclusion indicators, it is often not that councils are failing to adopt known best practice, but rather that successful best practice does not yet exist. Support to develop innovation and ‘next practice’ should be as much a part of LAA negations as signing up to targets.
So, 2008 must see our sector equipping regional improvement and efficiency partnerships to orchestrate the support and innovation needed by us from all improvement partners.
Naturally, nobody pretends this new destination is easily achieved, but neither should we doubt the prize that it will achieve better outcomes for our communities.
In retrospect, CPA impacted on local government and improved our focus on service improvement. In the next five years, the new CAA regime will have a similar impact and change the way we work through partnership and engagement on an area basis.
But the key to our individual and collective success very much rests on how well we exploit the potential of new LAAs in the coming year.
Rob Whiteman is chief executive of Barking & Dagenham LBC
