CLES News

LAA Alarm Bells

13th November 2008

Matthew Jackson and Nicola Headlam, Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES)

There is no question that the economic downturn will have far reaching effects on how local government and their partners do business, and on the central-local government dynamic. (‘Turning real power on its head’, The MJ 30 October)

However your headline piece in the same edition ; ‘Healey rejects calls to overhaul LAAs’ – contains suggestions that some of those involved in the LAA process are labouring under misapprehensions about the wider and deeper role of the LAA.

To suggest that extrinsic economic factors will now scupper the local government performance architecture is to view it as a narrow, cynical and superficial exercise in targetry rather than to take the opportunity it offers as the heart of a devolutionary framework for agreeing on local priorities.

The response to the economic downturn cannot be to look to central government to rewrite the LAA handbook but rather an opportunity for local government to take the initiative and shape their own economic destinies by responding to local economic challenges.

It may well be that some specific targets may need to be revised downwards but this is the whole point of the annual ‘refresh’ process and a test of the new ‘mature’ relationships between the Audit Commission, local government and the Government offices.

Hopefully these relationships are strong enough to bend, not brittle enough to break at the first test. As you highlight in your own Comment piece, their robustness is about to be tested!

Of course, the LAA is flexible enough to adapt to changing circumstances. The worry for local communities is that those alarmists suggesting otherwise may not be!