Aim

By linking up public services at a local level, LAAs aim to ‘deliver genuinely sustainable communities through better outcomes for local people.’

The government believes that the successful implementation of LAAs will result in:

• improved efficiency and value for money
• less bureaucracy from imposed target chasing and multiple audit regimes
• improved ‘local’ outcomes – through a clearer, shared focus
• joined up local delivery around people (rather than agencies)
• clearer local accountability and transparency.

Involvement of service users

The local partnerships involving for example local authorities, PCTs and JobCentre Plus that lead the LAA development are required to look to the VCS to help involve local people, giving voluntary sector organisations a key role in involving service users. You may have a Supporting People user forum or similar mechanism in your area, which could be a useful resource in gathering evidence on service user view points across the locality.

Barriers and benefits

Where existing local partnerships are strong, LAAs may be an opportunity to strengthen partnership structures. However, where structures are not robust and levels of trust are low, LAAs are likely to test partnership working.

While there are often a number of barriers to VCS engagement, including the fragmented nature of the sector, timescales, lack of resources, lack of information, lack of a strong, organised ‘voice’ at critical points in the development process, and lack of understanding by service commissioners of the added value the third sector can bring to service delivery, the involvement of the VCS in LAAs is crucial.

Voluntary and community sector supported housing providers have expressed concern that local strategic partnerships are only engaging with the recognised representative VCS organisation, which many supported housing providers do not engage with.

Good VCS involvement can lead to:

• the use of a wider range of funding sources
• the ability to co-ordinate service delivery across agencies, bringing initiatives together and joining up activities, and reducing duplication
• initiatives that are better at meeting local need
• a credible and well-respected LAA which can demonstrate contribution from local people.

Fulfilling statutory requirements

In addition to the 35 improvement outcomes that the local partnerships set themselves, they will still need to comply with the duties placed on them by law e.g. providing care, housing people deemed to be statutorily homeless.

Comprehensive Area Assessments

Central government will wish to monitor areas on their performance on all national priorities as set out in 198 targets of the national indicator set. The Audit Commission with other inspectorates will look at the quality of engagement with local communities and the risks to people in vulnerable circumstances in the area whether or not this features as a target in the LAA. They will also provide an independent assessment of the prospects for delivery of the chosen LAA targets. The first joint consultation on Comprehensive Area Assessment (CAA) was on 19 November 2007. Also, see our page on the LAA Performance Management Framework and NCVO's briefing on Comprehensive Area Assessments

Survey of Place

Alongside the set of 198 performance indicators, there are also 20 indicators relating to citizen perspectives that are proposed for collection through a single survey administered by local authorities. It is designed to capture local people’s views, experiences and perceptions, so that the solutions for an area can reflect local views and preferences. See the following consultation on the proposed survey of place

Multi Area Agreements

Multi-Area Agreements (MAAs)are voluntary agreements between two or more county or unitary local authorities, their partners (including, in two-tier areas, shire districts) and Government to achieve collective outcome-based targets to improve economic prosperity. The first MAAs will be signed off in June 2008. MAAs could potentially help address the issue that administrative boundaries often do not correspond to housing markets. Also, demand for a specialist service may not be great enough to attract funding in a specific LAA area but would be viable as a sub-regional shared service. MAA outcomes can be chosen from the National Indicator Set and set as a local target or even as part of the 'up to 35'. The relationships between LAAs, CAAs and MAAs are covered on our page on the LAA Performance Management Framework and in CLG's Operational Guidance and Delivering economic prosperity in partnership: The crucial role of the new local performance framework

Two tier authorities

Negotiations for LAAs will take place at the country or shire level rather than the district level. Supporting People teams will be well placed to link into the negotiating process. District councils need to engage with the LAA process as disaggregated targets can be set which focus on specific districts. Communities and Local Government's Operational Guidance on LAAs states that 'the mix of urban and rural settlement types covered by the vast majority of principal local authorities..should be reflected in the agreement of priorities which may require targets applying to the county as a whole, or for a specific district or at sub-county level involving more than one district. The sum of designated targets for a county area cannot however exceed 35'.

Area based grants

The Area Based Grant (AGB) is an un-ringfenced grant that many other funding streams are now part of or due to go in to (including Supporting Peopple in 2009 - see below). The usage of this grant will be influenced by the priorities set in the LAA The following list includes the grants that will be going into area based grants as announced as part of the provisional local government finance settlement, 6 December 2007: List of Former Specific Grants Moving into Area Based Grants

You can also see the regional break down of area based grants and all other Local Government Finance Settlements 2008/09 to 2010/11

Hard evidence around homelessness and social exclusion

All of the indicators they set themselves will need to be “improvement” targets, so local partnerships will need to have baseline data against which to measure improvements. It is therefore vital to have hard evidence to prove the need for homeless services to be included within the improvement targets. It is possible that for some priorities the hard evidence will not be available. This absence of data will need to be balanced against the perceived need for provision around this service.

There are no statutory measures or data around non-statutory homelessness and social exclusion. This can make it difficult to identify hard evidence to support your arguments. However, there are four key mechanisms to find hard evidence of the impact of the work that you are doing and the full range of support needs of the clients you support:

• Rough sleeping figures and counts
• Supporting People data e.g. KPI2 and SPI4
• Supporting People outcomes data and client records
• Audit Commission SP inspections
• Service user groups
• Your own client monitoring forms

Other sources are data to prove the interrelationship between homelessness and other needs include;

• Drug Intervention Records,
• National Drug Treatment Management System data,
• OASys (criminal justice)

Homelessness Indicators

Please see the complete list of the Single set of national indicators

There is no specific indicator on homelessness within the national set of 198 indicators. There are indicators relating to Supporting People, temporary accommodation and decent homes within which homelessness can be included. Furthermore there are other indirect indicators that tackling homelessness will contribute towards achieving, such as reducing re-offending, reducing substance misuse etc.

Ways to get homelessness included indirectly

Should it not be possible to get the most relevant indicators included, the best mechanism to ensure homelessness is included is to argue the case that homelessness can meet other improvement targets e.g. reducing re-offending. See our 'Connect' article on how Calderdale included reducing re-offending in their LAA. Further forming partnerships across sectors e.g. public health, crime, education and skills, employment can demonstrate the value of housing related support, day centres to these targets. Homelessness, housing and housing related support are essential to the achievement of these other targets.

For example reducing inappropriate hospital admissions could be a good way to get funding for activities such as floating support, meaningful activity etc.

See the Triangle Consulting paper - Demonstrating a valuable contribution on homelessness within the national indicators for a break down of indicators relevent to homelessness. Also Shelter's document on the new LAAs similarly examines the indicator set from a housing perspective.

Another important action is to link your Community Strategy and Homelessness Strategy directly to the relevent LAA targets you are lobbying for, or that you know are likely to be included in the chosen up to 35 improvement indicators. See our pages on how Solihull and Oldham Council have done just that.

Local targets

Although local targets will not be reported on to Government Offices like the chosen 35, councils will still have an obligation to monitor them at a local level. They also allow for more flexibility as they do not have to be based on an indicator from the basket of 198. It is worth trying to get a 'local' homelessness target within your LAA, particularly in rural areas where it is less likely to be a priority for the draft up to 35 improvement targets.

Annual Reviews

The annual reviews can also provide an opportunity to lobby again for targets relevent to homelessness. See our new page on the LAA Performance Management Framework for more information on the annual review that will be held in Autumn / Winter of this year.

Supporting People and LAAs

It is important to distinguish between Supporting People grant funding and the potential removal of ring fencing around this funding stream and the inclusion of relevant indicators within the local 35 improvement targets. Supporting People funding could be integrated into the area based grants from April 2009, dependent on the outcome from testing period with a small number of authorities in 2008/09. You can now see details of the areas involved in the Pathfinder project to assess the impact of delivering Supporting People funding through a non-ringfenced grant . However, waiting until 2009 to ensure that LAAs have the relevant improvement targets on Supporting People WILL be too late. LAA improvement targets will be set between October 2007 and end of March 2008. It is important to influence your LAAs to ensure that the relevant key national indicators for Supporting People are included and in particular socially excluded groups are mentioned (if this is not possible in the initial draft, then in the first annual refresh).

Specific targets from the national indicator basket around Supporting People are:

• National Indicator 141 "Number of vulnerable people achieving independent living"
• National Indicator 142 "Number of vulnerable people who are supported to maintain independent living"

Homelessness grants and LAAs

Homelessness grants (including Rough Sleeping grants) will continue to be paid direct to local authorities in April 2008. However, it remains essential that you work from now to get homelessness included and acknowledged within your LAA.

A relevant target from the national indicator basket around homelessness is:

• National Indicator 156 "Number of households living in Temporary Accommodation"