Local Area Agreements - Duty to co-operate

Under the new Act, HSE as a named partner will be under a statutory duty to cooperate with local authorities and their strategic partners in negotiating on LAA targets and, where appropriate, providing a framework that assists in their delivery. The HSE/LA Working Together Partnership already provides an excellent framework for both enforcing authorities to work together to use their collective resources more effectively to deliver improved outcomes.

The Department for Communities and Local Government (CLG) has set out what it expects of named partners:

• Co-operation should be administered through the LSP or Thematic Partnerships (e.g. Health partnership). As most targets will be cross-cutting, it is unlikely that there will be considerable negotiation between a named partner and the responsible LA.
• Co-operation should continue to be a continuous process of planned engagement rather than a one-off event – partners are expected to continue to be involved in determining the implementation arrangements for the LAA and the monitoring of progress against targets.
• The duty to co-operate applies to all local improvement targets in the draft LAA, not just for those, which are likely to be national priorities and therefore become designated (e.g. this might include local indicators in an LAA that relate to H&S, but which aren’t one of 35 agreed targets).
• Staff with sufficient authority should be involved in negotiations. Partners will only be able to co-operate effectively if representatives at negotiations are able to take key decisions and make commitments on behalf of their organisation.