Introduction to local area agreements

Find out what a local area agreement is and how it is structured.

What is a local area agreement?

A local area agreement (LAA) is a three year agreement between government and a local area. It is negotiated by the local authority (in Oxfordshire's case, the county council) on behalf of the Oxfordshire Partnership and the Government Office for the South East on behalf of central government.

Local area agreements contain a range of improvement targets which are based on local and national outcomes. These targets are agreed by negotiation with the Government Office.

Outcomes are delivered jointly in partnership giving local areas greater responsibility for delivery of priority outcomes.

Why is the LAA important?

• It gives us the opportunity to make local delivery more effective
• It provides us with greater freedom and flexibility to join up budgets and services
• It allows better use of resources through greater pooling of localised funding streams
• Central government direction is reduced
• It reduces bureaucracy
• In future it will form part of the Comprehensive Area Assessment

Incentives

In our current LAA we stand to achieve £3.7 million if we achieve all of our targets. Reward will be calculated based on an average of performance on our targets and is payable once we achieve 60% of the target.

In the first LAA we received pump priming grant of over £1 million to help 'kick-start' projects whose outcomes we agreed to stretch our performance. Potential reward grant of approximately £16 million is available if all our targets are achieved. In December 2009 we submitted our first claim for reward grant of £8.5 million. We expect to be able to claim more in 2010 when the final performance of our adult skills target is available.

Structure

The Local area agreement is based on key priority areas for government and is managed locally through our thematic partnerships. Thematic partnerships are responsible for delivering targets and in many cases have set up operational delivery groups to oversee delivery of the targets. 

For more information on the partnerships see the partnership tab of this website.

Public Service Board

The Public Service Board was set up by the Oxfordshire Partnership in 2005 to oversee development of the local area agreement. It is responsible for the development and delivery of our priority outcomes.

All the key public sector organisations in Oxfordshire are represented on the Public Service Board. More information about the PSB.

Support for the Local Area Agreement 

The Oxfordshire Partnership team is responsible for managing and supporting the development and delivery of the LAA. The team works closely with colleagues from corporate performance and finance at the county council to support the LAA programme effectively. There are regular link meetings to ensure that the programme is on track and new developments are planned for.

• Local Area Agreement
• Introduction to local area agreements
• Local Area Agreement 2008-11
• Managing the LAA
• Area Based Grant
• First Local Area Agreement 2006-09
• Local Area Agreement

Oxfordshire Partnership website is hosted by:
Oxfordshire County Council, County Hall, New Road, OX1 1ND