Pickles calls time on Local Area Agreements

The Communities Secretary has moved to abolish Local Area Agreements (LAAs), removing a substantial part of the performance reporting regime for local authorities.

In a letter sent to council leaders and chief executives yesterday, Eric Pickles claimed that abolishing LAAs would remove more than 4,700 targets from local authorities, “relieving you of the bureaucracy that that diverts money away from the front line.”

The notice under section 109 of the Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Act 2007revokes all designations of local improvement targets in Local Area Agreement with effect from 13th October.

He wrote: “What this means is that I am handing over full control of all current Local Agreements to you - if you wish to amend or drop any targets you are now free to do so, without needing my approval. Where you choose to keep any of your targets, we will no longer monitor your performance.”

The move means that councils will no longer be required to prepare new LAAs from April 2011. Performance Reward Grants against 2008-11 LAA targets will now also not be paid. “Deficit reduction and ensuring economic recovery are the most pressing issues facing Britain today, and of course local government has to take its share of the cuts,” Pickles said .

At the same time, the Department for Communities and Local Government said that the National Indicators used to monitor council performance will be replaced with an agreed single list of Whitehall data requirements for local government while “new transparency arrangements” will make sure councils remain accountable to local people.

In a statement today (14th October), Eric Pickles said: "Time and time again, I hear complaints from councils about how much of a burden the national indicator set is. Not because measurement and targets are always a bad thing, but national targets tend to mean that councils are constantly working on things which matter to Whitehall, regardless of what local residents think. I'd much rather councils were tackling local issues. The money being spent on form fillers and bean counters could be far better spent helping elderly people to stay in their homes. So, I'm scrapping the existing local area agreements. I'm handing over control of more than 4,700 targets to councils and their voters. To keep them or dump them as they see fit.

"And instead of the National Indicator Set, and instead of every single department's endless demands that you measure this, that or the other, there's just going to be one list of every bit of data that Government needs."