[Robert Jakeman]

Thanks for this - very useful.

Apologies if the following query has been answered elsewhere but I'll ask anyway - do partners with a duty to cooperate only need to cooperate when there is a link to an LAA target? If so, I think this would mean that partners like the Highways Agency would not need to attend scrutiny at my authority. I imagine that some would be tempted to make some tenuous links with LAA targets just to get partners to attend?

[Robert Jakeman]

Thanks for this - very useful.

Apologies if the following query has been answered elsewhere but I'll ask anyway - do partners with a duty to cooperate only need to cooperate when there is a link to an LAA target? If so, I think this would mean that partners like the Highways Agency would not need to attend scrutiny at my authority. I imagine that some would be tempted to make some tenuous links with LAA targets just to get partners to attend?

[Sue Crosland]

The legal duty is to co-operate with the council (the county council in two tier areas) in negotiating an LAA, and then to have regard to every target which relates to the organisation. What 'have regard to' means is set out in the Statutory Guidance, but essentially it means help to achieve it. The duties to respond to scrutiny relate to the LAA targets, yes. The LAA document will show which organisations are signed up to which targets, although one of the questions scrutiny could ask is whether all the appropriate organisations are signed up and doing what they should be doing.

That's the legal minimum. One of the aims of the guide and other work with the partnership you might do locally, would be to encourage partners to see the purpose of scrutiny and engage with it beyond the legal minimum.