Government Offices work very closely with local authorities – who have a major impact on most aspects of people’s day to day lives – to help them improve service delivery and value for money, and to promote better policy integration across the country.
More information on the national picture
Below is a summary of GO-East's work with local authorities and their partners:
Local Area Agreements: an agreement between Central Government and a Local Council, with the aim of building a more flexible and responsive way of making improvements at local level. GO-East has a significant role in the negotiation and refresh process.
Local Public Service Agreements: a voluntary three year agreement between the government and a Local Authority, with the aim of improving services by agreeing stretching targets in return for rewards. GO-East’s role was to assist with the negotiations between Local Authorities and Central Government.
Local Strategic Partnerships: organisations that bring together local public service providers, businesses and community and voluntary organisations. There are 52 LSPs across the region and GO-East provides advice and guidance on government policy.
Local Government Improvement: GO-East seeks to help to improve the standards of local government through working directly with local authorities who have achieved beacon status and those considered to be ‘weak’ or ‘poor’ under the Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) process, carried out by the Audit Commission.
Beacon Scheme: The beacon scheme aims to raise standards in all authorities by sharing best practice. When a local authority applies for Beacon status, the Government Office for the East of England supplies information to DCLG about the authority and its performance.
