The local authorities in Leicester and Leicestershire have a multi-area agreement (MAA) covering economic and employment issues. It was signed in January 2009. They are considering extending it to cover housing. This study looks at the factors influencing the decisions they will take in considering a housing-related MAA. It will be updated later, if and when the new or revised MAA goes ahead.

The issue

Housing is seen as being integral to the economic prosperity of Leicester and Leicestershire. There will be significant housing growth in the sub-region over the next twenty years. This will include more housing in Leicester City and a number of sustainable urban extensions adjoining Leicester and the main towns in the county. These new developments should be attractive and well-integrated in terms of transport, employment and leisure opportunities.

In the past, growth of the urban area around Leicester has been problematic. The city has tightly-defined administrative boundaries within which most of the available non-protected land has already been developed. Expansion into neighbouring districts has caused disagreement, notably in the case of an eco-town, south-east of the city (for which a bid was made in October 2007); it was favoured by the city council but opposed by the county council.

With a change in political leaders, there has been an improved atmosphere for collaboration. One outcome from this was the initial Multi-Area Agreement (MAA). The original MAA was signed in January 2009 and focuses on economic and employment issues. It says that ‘there is a strong case to include transport, housing and the environment because of the impact that these themes have on sustainable economic growth’. Extending the MAA to cover these areas is an issue now being actively considered, with a target date of April 2010 to decide whether to proceed. This case study focuses on the housing context and potential content of a revised MAA.

What they did

The local authorities have put in place an accountability framework for strategic planning and collaboration to implement the MAA (see below), at the top of which is the Leicester and Leicestershire Leadership Board. The Leadership Board held its first meeting in October 2008. It has seven members: the leaders of the city council and county council and one district council leader chosen by the districts; representatives from the HCA, East Midlands Development Agency (EMDA) and the voluntary and business sector. The role of the Leadership Board is to approve the sub-regional strategy, including the MAA, and to endorse a sub-regional investment plan. The Leadership Board has no direct decision-making powers and decisions have to go back to the constituent bodies. There are also quarterly meetings of all the leaders in the county council area with all the districts involved.

As well as steering the MAA itself, the board links the two LSPs (Leicester Partnership and Leicestershire Together). Below this member-level board there is an officer Co-ordination Group.

Housing is one of five strategy and performance groups – the Housing, Planning and Infrastructure (HPI) Group. This is chaired by the Chief Executive of Harborough District Council. The HPI will lead on any housing-related MAA if the targets relate to housing growth, and the HPI is already the established mechanism for sub-regional consideration of housing development issues.

Already within its remit is the Growth Fund, a strategic housing and planning project funded through RIEP (Regional Improvement and Efficiency Partnership); together with some EMDA funding and the single conversation with the HCA. A County Housing Board is also being set up (early 2010) to bring together work on housing development, housing support and strategic housing services with a particular focus on delivery of an Improvement Plan addressing issues indentified in the Comprehensive Area Assessment.

A decision will be made soon as to whether to take forward a housing-related MAA. If it does go ahead, it is likely to be confined to strategic housing issues, with performance assessed against the two key indicators (NI 154 and 155). Depending on negotiations with government, the aim would be for the new MAA to go ahead from April 2010.

The impact

The immediate impact of the framework was to improve collaboration between the authorities – this is now generally agreed to be much better than before, especially from the viewpoint of the second-tier district councils which previously found it more difficult to get their voices heard in the dialogue between the two first-tier authorities. The HPI is chaired by a district representative, and the other second-tier districts are all represented. There is an issue about engagement and communication, however, with planning professionals predominating within the HPI membership and strategic housing and heads of housing less directly engaged.

The collaboration framework is also now seen as important by senior elected members and by the respective chief executives – it has achieved a status which was not achieved by longer-established inter-authority mechanisms (for example, a long-standing chief housing officers’ group).

The good experience of joint working on the current MAA has meant that the partners are well-advanced in dealing with economic issues, understanding needs and developing a good quality commissioning strategy. Economic issues are also seen as the driver of strategic housing issues. This provides a strong base for a housing-related MAA.

In housing terms, the HPI group which will lead on the housing aspect of the MAA is already well-placed to do so because of its other work.

Lessons

The authorities had hoped the current MAA would produce more flexibility about use of resources than was actually achieved. Whether they go ahead to extend the MAA to cover housing will therefore depend on their judgement of what more it will enable them to deliver, in addition to what is already possible through the strategic co-ordination arrangements now in place.

It remains to be seen if central government will ‘bring to the table’ a wider range of concessions and flexibilities about funding programmes relating to housing that would be attractive to authorities in sub-regions such as Leicester and Leicestershire. For example, one ‘ask’ might be whether decisions about numbers of housing units can be devolved from regional to sub-regional level.

Despite having a good sub-regional mechanism in place to deliver housing strategy in partnership with government agencies, it is still vulnerable to changes in government policy. The Growth Fund has been cut, even though the budget had been fully committed up until 2011/2012. This has led to ‘decommissioning’ of projects, with an attempt being made to share equitably the impact of the cuts.

The value of the current framework (possibly strengthened by extending the MAA to cover housing) will be seen over future years, as access to capital funding becomes more difficult. A key test will be whether the framework survives when it becomes the mechanism for allocating a much smaller pot of resources, with some areas inevitably being cut more than others.

Further information

Mandip Rai
Strategy & Partnership Manager
Sub-Regional Support Unit
Leicester City Council
New Walk Centre
Leicester
LE1 6ZG

telephone: 0116 2527312

email: mandip.rai@leicester.gov.uk