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 300 voluntary & community organisations.

We believe that by joining people together we can get more positive action, 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 representatives and 14 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, Luton Borough Council, Education, Learning & Skills, local councillors and the voluntary community representatives.

(see below the Purpose of the Luton Forum, as laid out in its Constitution)

1. The Luton Forum is the Local Strategic Partnership for the Borough of Luton
2. The purpose of the Luton Forum is to bring together at a local level the
   different public sector agencies as well as private, business, community and
   voluntary sectors to agree a strategic vision and direction for Luton so that
   different initiatives and services support each other and work together.
3. The Luton Forum will seek to add value to existing activity.
4. As a partnership, the Luton Forum will negotiate, own, manage and be
   accountable for Luton’s Local Area Agreement.
5. The Luton Forum, will work in partnership at both strategic and grassroots
   level to deliver improvements in the Borough. The Luton Forum will place a
   strong emphasis on engaging communities and neighbourhoods, on
6. The Luton Forum will identify and evidence improvements needed, agree the
   Sustainable Community Strategy, and improve outcomes.
7. The Luton Forum will work towards the goal of enabling local people to
   influence decisionmaking.
8. The Luton Forum will enable business, the community and voluntary sectors
   to play a full and equal part in the work of the Luton Forum.
9. The Luton Forum will endeavour to ensure access to and equitable outcomes
   for all sections of the community in respect of all its projects
   

The 14 representatives take the view of their sector, collated at Assembly Committee meetings and other events, into the Forum meetings and try to influence decisions on behalf of Luton's communities. All 14 representatives sit on the Theme Groups (3 representatives from each Theme Group & the Assembly Chair and Vice-Chair).

To find out more about the Luton Forum itself visit their website: www.lutonforum.org

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.

If you are interested in joining the Luton Assembly, please email: lorna.brown@valuton.org.uk