People and places

Topics: LGA, national policy, place-shaping

The Local Government Association has published Closer to people and places: a new vision for local government.

There is a strong partnership element to the proposals - including:

• enhancing councils 'place-making' role; councils forming strong partnerships
  across the public private and voluntary sector and working with local people and partners to deliver the vision for their area;
• joining together the the totality of public services in the area and re-designing services around the user.

...snip...

Perhaps the greatest potential for better public service outcomes, better public access and increased efficiency can come from local councils steering and leading in their area. We propose:

• a next generation of Local Area Agreements, as a 'contract' between the local public service delivery partners and their community, led by the council and deploying the totality of public resource for the area;
• a 'duty to co-operate' placed on all partners of the Local Area Agreement executive;
• local government and central government agreeing some thrity national outcomes that local councils take responsibility to deliver with their partners in the LAA. In return, the freedom for targets to be drawn locally by councils and their partners in the LAA, instead of the restrictive plethora of central targets and regulation.

Alongside this report, there are factsheets setting out key messages and proposals in five areas

• Local Area Agreements - contracts to deliver for local people;
• giving people power - a new relationship with local councillors and local services;
• postcode choice - high-quality services tailored to the area;
• made to measure local services - a new performance and accountability framework;
• going for growth - realising the economic potential of our towns, counties and cities.

Alongside the interim Lyons report, this provides a strong message about the role of local government together with partners.

In many ways, this isn't a new model at all, but a return to the role local government had earlier in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. And it's a model that's used in many other countries - including the US (where I'm from).

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