Local Area Agreement 2008-2011

A Local Area Agreement (LAA) is a three year agreement, based on Local Sustainable Community Strategies, that sets out priorities for a local area. The priorities, which are based on evidence of local need and extensive community engagement, are developed through the Local Strategic Partnership, and agreed by Central Government (represented by Government Office North East).

Redcar and Cleveland's first LAA was signed off in March 2007 and ran for one year until March 2008. For details regarding the first LAA, please use the links at the bottom of the page.

The Government's White Paper 'Strong and Prosperous Communities', which was published in October 2006, set out fundamentally different arrangements for LAAs in order to 'provide Local Authorities and their partners with the flexibility and capacity to deliver the best solutions for their areas through a reformed relationship between central and local government'.

New LAA's, introduced in April 2008 mean that:

LAAs will be the only place where central government will agree targets with local authorities and their partners on outcomes delivered by local government on its own or in partnership with others.
LAAs will no longer be about specific funding for specific targets. Because they will now include all targets agreed with central government, delivery against the 35 + 17 improvement targets is now effectively supported by all resources in the area.
There will be a new unringfenced area based 'LAA' grant, with a presumption that all area based funding would go through this route unless there were very strong arguments for retaining a ringfence. This grant will have no performance reporting or other conditions attached.

Redcar and Cleveland's Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS) will be adopted on 17th July 2008. This is the Borough's long-term strategy and the new LAA is based on the objectives contained within the SCS. It, in effect, translates these objectives into indicators and targets to secure the improvements that local people want to see.

The new LAA supersedes the old LAA and runs from April 2008 - March 2011 (signed off by the Secretary of State in June 2008). It is based around 5 themes:

Children and Young People
Safer Communities
Stronger Communities
Healthier Communities
Sustainable Communities

The starting point in developing our new LAA was through the creation of our Story of Place. This provides the context for both the SCS and the LAA, highlighting both our progress and areas of strength, together with key challenges for the future. It has been informed by a wide range of information, including statistical evidence, outcomes from public consultation, particularly with regard to local priorities, and local knowledge. The full Story of Place can be downloaded using the link at the bottom of the page.

The new LAA has allowed Local Authorities, and their partners, to choose up to 35 indicators, drawn from the new National Indicator Set, that reflect the priorities in their local area. The Council, after full and extensive consultation with the Redcar and Cleveland Partnership, agreed on 35 indicators that are based on sound evidence and that reflect the areas that we most need to focus on improving.

In addition to these 35 indicators, we are also required to include 17 statutory education and early years indicators and can include as many 'local' indicators as we want. We have made the decision to include the current 13 stretched indicators as our local indicators, which will continue from the old LAA, in order to ensure we retain the focus on our priority areas. We have also included the Tees Valley Multi Area Agreement (MAA) indicators within our local set. More information on the MAA and the final document will be available soon, once agreed.

Negotiations with Government Office for the North East have now been concluded and the final LAA, submitted to GONE on 30th May 2008, is available to download below. The LAA will be signed off by the Secretary of State in June 2008.

For more information on the LAA, please contact Katy Austin: (01642) 444214 or email: katy_austin@redcar-cleveland.gov.uk