• Partners need performance measurement and reporting for shared objectives; common data quality standards and mechanisms take time to develop.
• Performance management and influence has developed unevenly across LSP activities, weakening joint working and crowding out some objectives.
• Most LSPs lack mechanisms for assigning mainstream resources towards achieving the goals of the sustainable community strategy (SCS) and the local area agreement (LAA).
• Few LSPs have assessed the costs and benefits of joint working.
• National failure to align planning and reporting cycles makes it difficult for local agencies to align performance and resource management systems.
• Governance arrangements should support LSPs' accountabilities to member organisations and through them to local people.
• There is little evidence that councils are using overview and scrutiny arrangements to hold LSPs, and partners, to account.