About Harlow 2020

Early days

The Harlow 2020 partnership was set up in 1995 by Harlow Council and a group of local service providers to develop a co-ordinated approach to the development of the town and realise the benefits of shared knowledge and resources.

In its early days, the Harlow 2020 Partnership focused on local regeneration needs in terms of the development of the town centre and support for young people to enable them to access worthwhile jobs. These priorities were determined by the local community through a series of community conferences.

Early achievements include:

• A Foyer for young people in the town centre
• A one stop shop for young people at the Young Peoples Information Centre based in the Foyer
• A Basic Skills Project to work with young people and adults with basic skill needs
• The Harlow On-Line Learning Initiative (HOLLi), which provides centres where local people and employees can access training and basic skills.

Through these developments partners learned from each other and built tremendous trust and confidence to address key local issues.

Legislative moves

In the 1990s Harlow's move in setting up the Partnership was considered to be pioneering. In 2000 the Government recognised the huge potential benefits that could arise from joint working and established Local Strategic Partnerships. It charged them with delivering community strategies - blueprints for the future development of the areas they serve.

In 2001 the Harlow 2020 Partnership reviewed its structure, aims and processes to meet the Government's definition of a Local Strategic Partnership.

Visionary work

In 2001 the Partnership carried out a widespread consultation exercise, using the results to develop the first edition of the Harlow 2020 Vision . We have worked hard on its delivery and are extremely proud of our achievements to date.

We made a commitment to review the community strategy every three years to ensure it continued to reflect local aspirations, and in 2006 we published the Harlow 2020 Vision 2006-2009 . This sets out our objectives for the next three years.

Fit for the future

In 2007, the Harlow 2020 Partnership took part in a regional pilot, using and assessing a new toolkit called Aspire2Perform. The Aspire2Perform toolkit is designed to give LSPs a quick analysis of how well their arrangements and delivery are working and to prompt discussion amongst the partnership about what is working well and what can be improved.

Harlow 2020 is a long established partnership with a track record of delivery and effective partnership work in the town. This was reflected in the results of the Aspire part of the toolkit with consistently high scores in most areas, however there is scope for reviewing this area, especially around the governance, expectations and shared approach areas to consider whether the partnership could more effectively manage its working to ensure that partners are aware of and comfortable with the approach taken by the partnership. Partners have considered whether the election of a new chair should coincide with a review of the way that 2020 does it business (see Structure).

The second part of the Aspire2Perform toolkit looks at how LSPs deliver. The diagram that resulted from 2020 partners' response to this tool shows a more diverse range of comments. There are clear strengths in the way that 2020 bases its actions on evidence and designs interventions to match needs. However, there appear to be areas where there is scope for improvement: identifying outcomes, options and priorities and commissioning delivery. The partnership has discussed ways in which these issues could be strengthened to ensure that the challenges of the new Essex LAA are addressed effectively in Harlow (see Structure).

Funding Harlow 2020

The Partnership receives annual contributions from Harlow Council, Essex County Council (via the Local Area Agreement), Princess Alexandra Hospital, NHS West Essex and Essex Police. Partners give this money because Harlow 2020 makes a big difference to their own work.

Harlow 2020 Partnership Ledger for 2009/10

Further information:

• Structure
• Terms of Reference
• Aims and Objectives