Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

The amendment raises an important question. I shall demonstrate the distinction between designated targets and local targets, because that will help as we come on to talk about later amendments. The draft LAA will be composed of local improvement targets that have been agreed by the responsible authority and the named partners following negotiation with each other—not set by the Secretary of State, as the noble Baroness Hamwee, said on a previous amendment. That negotiation will be informed by local plans, particularly the sustainable community strategy; it might be a lengthy negotiation, but it will be thorough. Around the table, those local priorities will have been identified. Within that process, some local targets will be identified that are drawn from the core national policy priorities, as identified in the bank of 200 indicators. Those are the designated targets, and they carry different processes with them. They are set against national policy priorities, against which every area will have to report. One of those 200 indicators might be reducing worklessness. Against that, the local authority will have to look at how, in relation to that national target, it can deal with its own local problems. In those 35 targets, the national policy priorities posit a framework against which local areas will have to report, and which will cover everything the local authority delivers on its own or in partnership. When the draft LAA is submitted to the Secretary of State—with those negotiated targets—via the government office, the Secretary of State, on behalf of the Government, will formally designate the targets that are drawn from the national indicator set. That will not be a surprise at all to the LAA partners, because the indicator set will be made public this autumn. As the process for negotiating the local improvement targets as a whole goes through, everyone will be well aware of what the key national priorities are, and will therefore be able to make a judgment about how those priorities will be refracted in the local area so that they will be of paramount importance in the negotiation. The local improvement targets within the LAA are not designated. They are not critical from a national point of view, but they will obviously be very important locally if one of the targets is, for example, to reduce a particular type of anti-social behaviour. Achieving that, however, will be a local priority. Such targets will obviously remain important to the LAA. The designated targets and the local targets are of equal weight in terms of the local area. Therefore, the named parties remain under a duty to have regard to them. However, those targets can be amended without reference to the Secretary of State; they will not be reported on to central government; they belong to and will be discharged by the local authority. There can be as many of them as the local authority wants. Designated targets refer to those targets within an approved LAA which are negotiated and are of both national and local interest. However, it would be inappropriate to establish in the Bill an upper limit to the number of designated targets. We want the Bill to establish a sustainable and flexible framework for agreeing priorities in a locality. We have tried to make the process as flexible and responsive as possible. Putting an upper limit in legislation would be restrictive and arbitrary. However, there is no doubt that we are committed to the radical reduction of targets. We want to see indicators coming down from 1,200 to 200. The LAA will be the only place in future where central government will agree targets with local authorities. There will be no other processes outside that. We also remain committed to the principle of ensuring that, where agencies and partners need to collaborate, they work towards shared targets as opposed to the present situation, where individual targets are often set separately and in conflict. While I understood what the noble Baroness said, we believe that around 35 is a sensible number and that this issue is best dealt with in the statutory guidance. We have already said in the document, Developing the future arrangements for Local Area Agreements, that we expect LAAs to contain up 35 improvement targets and 18 statutory early-years/education targets. I am happy to state on the record that we will reiterate that upper limit in the guidance for the next round of LAAs. I hope that that will reassure the noble Baroness.