Spelman: Total Place will eclipse LAAs
Author: Local Government Chronicle |
Shadow communities secretary Caroline Spelman has raised fundamental questions over the future of local area agreements (LAAs), after stating they “will probably be eclipsed” by the Total Place programme.
In the most explicit endorsement of the groundbreaking programme given by a shadow front-bench minister so far, Ms Spelman told a seminar that it was Total Place that would “pave the way for really good horizontal co-operation” between different public bodies, rather than LAAs.
“Local area agreements are probably going to be eclipsed by what Total Place has to offer,” she said after asserting that LAAs have “never really quite proceeded”.
Ms Spelman also said the reason Total Place would succeed where other initiatives to get money spent better at a local level had failed was because it had buy-in from the Treasury rather than just the Department for Communities & Local Government.