Teen pregnancy tussle mars LAAs

Ministers have agreed a compromise deal over teenage pregnancy targets in councils' local area agreements (LAAs).

Communities secretary Hazel Blears told LGC the government could reset targets on reducing teenage pregnancy in a year's time after the issue proved the biggest sticking point in what local government has hailed as an otherwise positive process.

The final list of locally agreed targets for each of the 150 English top-tier councils released on Monday showed cutting teenage pregnancy was the second most widely selected
indicator, behind tackling worklessness among 16 to 18-year-olds. Targets to provide housing and cut CO2 emissions also figured prominently.

Ms Blears said: "The targets were set for three years in most cases, but with teenage pregnancy we will look again in a year.

"If you look at what we have learned on teenage pregnancy, the negotiating sessions were challenging but realistic, and perhaps we didn't start out at that place."

One council chief executive said his local primary care trust had already been set what he described as "unachievable" targets by its strategic health authority before it even started negotiations with the council.

"It is beyond comprehension that on this one single target they took this attitude," he said. "There is a recognition that it isn't going to work. They are going to review the whole question early next year. It looks to me like they are trying to mount a climbdown from an unsustainable position."

Andrew Campbell, director of local strategic partnerships and performance at the Department for Communities & Local Government, told an LGC conference last week that around 80% of the LAA indicators had been easy for Whitehall and councils to agree.

Mr Campbell said that of the remaining fifth of indicators that had been the subject of hard negotiation, central and local government had emerged with roughly equal spoils.

Top five indicators

• Sixteen to 18-year-olds not in education, employment or training 115

• Under-18 conception rate 106

• Net additional homes provided 104

• Number of affordable homes delivered 102

• Per capita reduction in CO2 emissions 100