NATIONAL DRIVERS REGIONAL PRIORITIES LOCAL PRIORITIES PRACTICAL TOOLS PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT CASE STUDIES FURTHER INFORMATION

Local Area Agreements examples

Print friendly version
‘Culture must be delivered in partnership and a key strength of our culture programmes is that they are firmly embedded in the objectives of both the council and the local strategic partnership and the community strategy.’
Dave Burbage, Chief Executive, London Borough of Newham, Inspiring our ambitions through sport, arts, culture and place, Solace/IDeA, 2007


Culture and sport have struggled to find their place within many LAAs to date. The cultural and sports content of LAAs throughout England and the South East is so far generally limited. Culture and sport indicators and targets are not yet embedded in the performance management frameworks of LAAs, even in some authorities where culture and sport are a high priority. Where culture and sport measures and targets have been included, in some case insufficient thought has been given to the mechanisms and resources available to capture baseline data and to report on achievement against future targets.

Yet culture and sport bring economic, social and environmental benefits that help deliver the very highest priorities for communities. They are most effective embedded in the strategic and performance frameworks of the local authority and their partner organisations.

Within the South East some progress has been made in recognising the contribution of culture and in developing appropriate performance indicators. Specific case studies of the inclusion of cultural outcomes and measures are contained in the case studies section.

All the cultural outcomes and measures in the existing LAAs in the South East can also be viewed by authority. For each LAA a summary is provided of the:

  • outcomes that cultural activity will contribute to
  •  proposed performance indicators, baseline positions and year 3 targets where they are available.


For authorities whose LAA was signed in Rounds 1 and 2 the information provided is based on the latest LAA ‘Refresh’ completed for April 2007.

Only cultural and sports content that is explicitly referenced within the LAA outcomes, performance indicators or supporting text or that is clearly implicit within the LAA outcomes or performance indicators is included. For example, attainment of Healthy Schools status is included because it has elements related to sport and physical activity.

The wording of the outcomes, performance indicators and targets is taken directly from the LAAs. This results in some slightly different representations of the same performance indicator. [Any points of clarification that have been added are in square brackets.]

Any performance indicators that have an attached Reward element are shown with an R.

Click on the links below to go to the summary table for an individual authority:

Copies of the original LAAs are available on the Improvement and Development Agency website. Information on the latest ‘Refresh’ of the LAA can usually be found on the web site of the relevant local authority or on request from the authority’s lead officer for the LAA.

Back