Hampshire's Local Area Agreement

As of June 2008, Local Area Agreements (LAAs) are in place for all 150 upper-tier local authority areas in England. They allow for more collaborative action and service delivery by bringing together partners from the public, private and voluntary sectors.

As defined by the government, a local area agreement:
“Sets out the ‘deal’ between central government and local authorities and their partners to improve the quality of life for local people. As such, the LAA is also a shorter-term delivery mechanism for the Sustainable Community Strategy (SCS)”.

LAAs set out the priorities for a local area agreed between central government and a local area (the local authority and Local Strategic Partnership) and other key partners at the local level. LAAs simplify some central funding, help join up public services more effectively and allow greater flexibility for local solutions to local circumstances.

The Hampshire LAA is an important document for the WDSP. The LAA sets out a number of issues that partners in Hampshire have agreed with central Government should be the focus of all our work. We measure our performance in improving these issues against a number of targets we have agreed to try and meet.

Although the LAA is based on a Hampshire-wide area, important and relevant elements of the LAA have been integrated into our Community Strategy so the WDSP can play its part in delivering it in the District.

Hampshire County Council is the organisation responsible for monitoring progress against the targets and for making sure that everyone can play their role in delivering the LAA. The County Council host a website dedicated to the LAA, which will tell you more about what our targets are, who is involved and how well we are doing. http://www3.hants.gov.uk/localareaagreement.htm

You can also visit http://www.localpriorities.communities.gov.uk/ to see what the priorities are in other areas and you can get more information about the local priorities and results from http://www.localpriorities.communities.gov.uk/LAAResults.aspx