Local Government and Public Involvement in Health Bill

My Amendment No. 207 probes two points. First, this is one of a number of opportunities in this part of the Bill to probe the relationship between the local strategic partnerships and the local area agreement. Again, I am speaking specifically about two-tier areas. For example, Lancashire has 12 local strategic partnerships at district level and one at county level, which must be replicated in many counties. In terms of the local impact of partnership working and co-ordinated investment, district level partnerships have been more important than the county partnership. As I understand it, the county partnership does not even have representation from every district on it and may have minimal representation from the districts in the county, which to some of us is entirely unacceptable and is being argued about, albeit not very successfully. What will be the relationship between the local strategic partnerships and the local area agreement if they are not part of it? If they are part of it, how will the LEA cope with the fact that there are 12 of them scattered around, doing their own thing? My second point very much relates to east Lancashire. Elevate, the housing market renewal pathfinder in east Lancashire, along with eight others throughout the country, is responsible for a very substantial investment of channelling and government funds. The figure for east Lancashire is somewhere between £40 million and £50 million a year—I should have looked that up, but I did not—which is then channelled through the district councils. That is an important element of public investment in east Lancashire. How, then, does the pathfinder fit into the local area agreement? What is their relationship? I shall comment briefly on what the noble Lord, Lord Smith of Leigh, said about further education colleges. That issue again illustrates the difficulties in large two-tier areas. I have been adding up in my head how many FE colleges there are in Lancashire, and I have counted eight, although there may be more. Bringing in all eight causes organisational bureaucratic difficulties of exactly the kind I was talking about with regard to having an LEA in an area such as Lancashire.