The Government were keen to see local plans for deprived areas and wanted to ensure that all the key players were involved in developing these plans. Therefore the Government asked Local Authorities in each of the 88 Neighbourhood Renewal areas to establish a Local Strategic Partnership of partners from the private, public and community and voluntary sectors. These partners were asked to work together to draw up Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategies (LNRS) that would:
· Identify priority neighbourhoods across the Borough
· Understand their problems and any differential impact on residents
· Map the resources going into these neighbourhoods
· Agree on what more needs to be done
· Implement, monitor and self-evaluate agreed actionsMoney was then allocated to each of these 88 areas. This gave Haringey more money to spend on local services. This money was to be targeted at the most deprived areas within the Borough.
This is happening at the moment and Haringey has produced a Local Neighbourhood Renewal Strategy – ‘Narrowing the Gap’ which sets out the plans to improve Haringey’s most disadvantaged neighbourhoods over the next ten years.
This document was produced by the Local Strategic Partnership – which in Haringey is called the Haringey Strategic Partnership – based on the following principles:
· Building Partnership
· Working Together
· Making the Money Work
· Targeting Inequalities
What is different about Neighbourhood Renewal?
Neighbourhood Renewal is not just about tackling the problems of really deprived areas by targeting a small amount of additional funds. The Government looked carefully at the problems of many other regeneration initiatives and saw that, often when the money had run out, areas were no better off than they had been before. With NRF the Government’s aim is to not only bring in some small additional resources but to ensure that the mainstream funds of all the big spenders (Local Authority, Police, Health etc.) are being targeted more specifically on the needs of a local area – meeting the needs of local people, and tackling the causes of deprivation.
What does the Haringey Strategic Partnership do?
LSPs are given the task of bringing together all the people from the various sectors who can produce a plan that:
Ø Builds on the past
Ø Involves residents in deciding the sort of community they want to live in
Ø Helps improve services by better planning
Ø Helps community and voluntary groups with their work, including delivering some of the services agreed on
Makes sure that all groups can have a say.
The Haringey Strategic Partnership has played a key role in bringing a together a good mix of public sector partners – the Police, Job Centre Plus, Primary Care Trust, London North Learning and Skills Council, College of North East London and Middlesex University as well as both Councillors and Officers from Haringey Borough Council – to work with other sectors to tackle the issues that affect people and communities across the Borough.
The Community and Voluntary sector is currently represented by temporary representatives and observers until the Community Empowerment Network is established locally.
Haringey Strategic Partnership has produced both the ‘Narrowing the Gap’ strategy document and a Community Strategy.
