What is the Luton Assembly?
What is the Luton Forum?
How do I get involved?

What is the Luton Assembly?

Luton Assembly is a Community Empowerment Network (CEN), and is made up of over 650 voluntary & community organisations.

We believe that by joining people together we can get more positive action than a few, so CENs are formed to help the voluntary & community sector to get their opinions across to the local statutory agencies of Luton as well as regional and national decision makers. This is important, so that policy and decisions take into account community views.

What is the Luton Forum?

The CEN elects 18 representatives and twelve of these sit on the Luton Forum. Luton Forum is the local name for the Local Strategic Partnership (LSP), and is made up of many different agencies such as the Police, Fire, Primary Care Trust, Luton Borough Council, Education, Learning & Skills, local councilors and the voluntary community representatives.

Luton Forum amongst other things, decides where and how the Neighbourhood Renewal Fund will be spent, and must consult the voluntary community sector. The 12 representatives take the view of their sector, collated at Assembly meetings and other events, into the Forum meetings and try to influence decisions on behalf of Luton's communities. All representatives sit on the Theme Groups and influence decisions taken in those meetings.

How do I get involved?

As LSPs gain more duties and powers from the Government it is extremely important that local communities get involved. You can:

• Attend the Assembly meetings and find out what is going on
• Speak personally to an Assembly Representative
• Form into a local Empowerment Network
• Put members of your communities/organisations forward as Assembly representatives, in the yearly elections.