Feasibility Testing - the Oldham & Cumbria Experience

Cumbria, having signed off its LAA in March 2007, wishes to focus on understanding how best to agree priorities with partners for such a diverse and large county. Testing for this area will hopefully explore who should be involved in agreeing priorities, how to best engage partners, and the process by which priorities should be agreed. As a new countywide community strategy is also in development the feasibility testing provides a helpful opportunity to consider this process to make it as robust, meaningful and inclusive as possible.

Whilst there are very real differences between the areas' experiences to date of LAA and what they want to get out of the testing, there are a number of common messages they wish to communicate to CLG and Government Office for the North West. These are:

• the need to maintain and further build on the mutually supportive relationships the areas feel they have with GONW;
• the need for CLG to understand that different areas are at very different stages in the maturity of strategic partnerships which in turn impacts on where the LAA partnerships can focus their efforts;
• the need for funding allocations to be made at a more suitable time when plans are in development in order to provide security for partner organisations;
• the need for robust three year delivery contracts to be agreed with Government, minimising bureaucracy and enabling local partners to focus on delivery – the LPSA/ stretch target methodology is suggested as a basis for this;
• the need for three year funding allocations to be made via the LAA Grant to minimise bureaucracy and enhance service delivery;
• early clarity around funding streams (such as NDC and HMR) and clear guidance on how LAAs will work with capital funding programmes and other public funding bodies such as RDAs.