The current Local Area Agreement for Derbyshire will cease on 31 March 2008 with new Local Area Agreements being introduced from April 2008.

The New Performance Framework for Local Authorities and Local Authority Partnerships was published on 11 October 2007 and sets out a single set of just 198 indicators representing the key national priorities for local government working alone or in partnership.

The new Derbyshire Local Area Agreement (LAA) will run from June 2008 until March 2011 and will consist of up to 35 targets and 17 statutory education and early years’ targets taken from the national indicator set.

Earlier in the year Derbyshire County Council was one of 17 local areas chosen to participate in the LAA Feasibility testing process. Involvement in this process provided a direct opportunity to influence and shape the future direction of LAAs and to identify possible problems and issues in terms of agreeing and negotiating targets in a local area. The information collected on the priorities for Derbyshire through this process formed the basis of future negotiations in developing the LAA 2008-11.

Work has continued to take place to refine the priority issues previously identified by partners, raise awareness and ensure the continued engagement of partners. A workshop was held on 14 December 2007 to seek to further refine the priority issues and indicators for the Derbyshire LAA building on negotiations with the Government Office for the East Midlands. Once agreement on the 35 priority indicators has been reached and discussions taken place with Government Office for the East Midlands, work to establish baselines and targets will begin.

Whilst new LAAs will be formally approved by central government in June 2008, the current Derbyshire LAA will cease on 31 March 2008. It is anticipated that key priorities for Derbyshire will be in place by April 2008 to ensure that there is no gap between the current and new LAAs.

For full details on the LAA please visit the Derbyshire County Council website, or contact Kerry Bailey 0845 9072241 ext 3684 e-mail: kerry.bailey@erewash.gov.uk

You can download a copy of the Local Area Agreement from our Strategic Documents section.