Offender Management Bill

That is why we are making changes to local area agreements and will be able to put them on a statutory footing. The partnerships that we have created are not restricted to crime and disorder reduction partnerships. Noble Lords will remember that we have local strategic partnerships, local criminal justice boards, CDRPs and the structures that we are now putting in place. Those will all be bound into the structure for putting local area agreements on to a statutory footing. We will be able to identify certain core issues that all local area agreements will contain, but there will be other issues that local areas will be able to better identify to meet their needs in a way that will enhance co-operation and joint working. I say clearly to the Committee that all the things that we have looked at to date that have worked well have been predicated on various agencies working together. The reductions that we have seen, for instance, in crime and reoffending have been the direct result of conjoined work targeting issues which cause an increase in crime. Our structure gives us a good opportunity to consolidate that and to deliver. I am not saying that we will not take this away, but we have thought about it very carefully and tried to structure it to enable the procedure to deliver exactly what noble Lords wish.