[Alix Boswell]

LGC has an article recently where they stated quite strongly that LAAs would be abolished (although DCLG said they were "under review") - I can't see any reference to LAAs in this document (unless there's an inference I've missed).

Does anyone know any more? if LAAs are deleted, presumably they will have to be included in the Localism Bill ? and...... doesn't that remove the bedrock of the scrutiny of partnership provisions?

[Peter Foulsham]

Ehammond Wrote:Some juicy tidbits in here about more detailed plans for local government reform - including timescales.

http://www.communities.gov.uk/documents/...359212.pdf

I'm intrigued by Action 2.6 and the highly attractive 'Home on the Farm' schemes. Just imagine . . . . in need of affordable housing and probably a job, then faced with no rural public transport links, isolation from friends and family, nothing much in common with the local community and not a whole lot to do. Lovely views, though.

Have I missed the point?

[Melanie Ponomarenko]

I have no idea whether it links with this - but there was an item on the BBC this morning/yesterday morning (!) about young people being pushed out of rural areas due to the cost of buying. The example given was a farmer in his 20's who was earning £21k per year in an area where the average house price was in excess of £250k. He couldn't realistically move too far away due to working hours, not that he wanted to move away from the community he grew up in anyway. As I say, it might not be about that. Who knows!

[Gemma Waugh]

I think that was something different. A kind of farmer key worker thing just like teachers and nurses have. Or that's how I interpreted it. But does make more sense than for already rural people rather than those not already isolated to be shipped out there. Farmers would be happier about doing up their outhouses for one of their own.

[Ed Hammond]

Yes, I found it peculiar that the "Home on the Farm" thing was highlighted and am intrigued!

As for LAAs - there will still be (there will have to be) agreements between the council and its partners about work being undertaken locally. However, I suspect that in future this will be carried out on a more pragmatic (and, arguably, meaningful) basis as part of place-based budgeting arrangements. LAAs in their current form may go because they embody the kind of top-down prescription that the current Government especially dislikes.

Quite apart from anything else, with the regional Government Offices being abolished, who would be in a position to approve the LAAs anyway? And with CAA and the NIS gone too, the reason for Government approval of LAAs and direction as to their contents melts away.

This is all, of course, supposition at this stage (isn't everything?)