Voluntary Action Camden : Local Area Agreements

Local Area Agreements

Camden’s Local Area Agreement (LAA) is now in place and the first round of commissioning has taken place. A number of groups expressed concerns about the process adopted and the time scales imposed.

In a report to the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) on the 27th March it was noted that the time frame had resulted in the number of voluntary organisations commissioned through the LAA being relatively small overall although this varied across panels. ‘A total of 20 of the 86 services commissioned are to be delivered by the voluntary sector’.

The report goes on to acknowledge that, ‘ voluntary and community organisations have raised concerns about the process for identifying organisations or agencies to submit proposals to deliver services under the LAA. Other concerns expressed by some voluntary and community sector and neighbourhood partnership representatives have raised concerns principally related to the speed of the process and a feeling that there has been insufficient time to establish the role of participants and gather information from colleagues.’

As a result there is now a commitment to review the process, an exercise that is to commence immediately and report in time to inform year two commissioning that will commence in September. The review is to be carried out by the Capacity Building and Funding Management Team and steered through a review group with representatives from the voluntary and community sector, neighbourhood partnerships and lead officers. The review group is to be set up in April. In May and June work will commence to look at other models of good practice, to develop a method of identifying potential providers and clarifying the role of the voluntary and community sector and neighbourhood partnerships. An initial report will go to the LSP in July/August with the new commissioning process for year 2 being agreed by the LSP in September 06.

VAC wants to hear your views on this process. To register your view and to get further contact:

Simone Hensby
T: 020 7284 6555
E:Simone Hensby

Summary Report from the event held on the 22nd February 2006 (83kb pdf).

Last updated April 26, 2006