Local Public Service Agreements (PSA's) are partnership agreements between individual Councils and the Government, intended to
improve performance in key services more quickly and/or to a higher level than would
otherwise be the case. Lead authorities must be County Councils, Unitary or Metropolitan
authorities. Worcestershire is early entrant into this process.
To take part the local authority (and any partners) is required to undertake to deliver
targets which exceed the planned performance levels. Authorities may exceed
performance in terms of quality, quantity and/or the timescale on which the service is
delivered. A local PSA will focus on about twelve or so key service areas which
reflect a mix of national and local priorities. In addition the
government has stipulated that the local authority must include within their PSA a cost
effectiveness target and one each of an education, social services, education or social
services, and transport target from a nationally proscribed list. This
effectively restricts the number of local targets to 7.
PSAs are also an opportunity to achieve a relaxation in some of the more restrictive rules
currently applied by the Government to local authorities, although these have to be
negotiated with government departments.
If we meet our targets the gain for Worcestershire is considerable. There is in
excess of £9.4m at stake in three years time if we successfully meet out targets.
At Worcestershire we have chosen 12 key targets which we believe reflect local and
national priorities. More information about them is available on this site.
Over the next 3 years, Worcestershire County Council and its partners, all District
Councils, West Mercia Police, the Health Authorities and the Fire Brigade will be working
hard together to deliver these for the people of Worcestershire.