LAA refresh complete
The refresh of Worcestershire's
Local Area Agreement has been agreed and signed off by the
Secretary of State for Communities and Local Government, John
Denham.
This year's refresh process focused primarily on the targets
that relate to the economy to take the local effects of the
national recession into account. The partnership has been able to
agree more favourable – but still challenging – targets for three
of the indicators that relate to child poverty, worklessness and
new business registration:
- NI 112 (under 18 conception rate) - no year three target
was agreed.
- NI 116 (proportion of children in poverty) - maintain a lead
over the England average of not less than 5.2 per cent.
- NI 152 (working age people on out of work benefits) - maintain
a lead over the English average of not less than 2.3 per cent.
- NI 171 (new business registration rate) - 113.1 per cent of
West Midlands regional average (renegotiated from 115.5%).
"The whole point of the LAA is that it sets targets that will be
challenging for the partners to achieve," explained Jennifer Taylor
of the partnership. "Whilst we've been able to negotiate less
challenging targets, they're still very demanding and some people
might argue that the effects of the recession should have justified
greater reductions. However, the excellent work between teams is a
great start and every effort we make towards achieving the targets
will help local people, so it's a very positive process."
Please visit the
Local Area Agreement page for more information about the
successful refresh and full details of the targets.
