Sydenham wrote: 31 Jan 2025 17:24 Here's the email received on 17th January - based on your passionate response you might be interested in sending in feedback via the link in the content:

https://forms.office.com/pages/response ... e=shorturl

Dear Resident,

I am writing to inform you as a participant in our Local Assemblies Programme, that after careful consideration the Council has taken the difficult decision to withdraw council officer support and funding from the programme from April 2025.

As you may be aware, Local Assemblies were established as part of the Mayor’s Commission, Empowering Communities and Neighbourhoods, in 2007.

The role of Assemblies, as outlined in the Commission, was that they should be a “Vehicle for local empowerment, establishing a structured environment in each ward that will support an ongoing process for identifying and resourcing local concerns and implement local solutions”.

At the time of establishment each Assembly had a budget of £25,000 which it could allocate directly in order to address ward issues through the provision of revenue or capital funding to local groups. Due to council funding pressures, this funding began to be reduced in 2012 and by 2020 all funding had been removed, with only the meetings remaining.

Now with only the meetings remaining, it has become clear that Assemblies are no longer proving to be an effective mechanism to involve and engage with local communities or to deliver on the original aims of the Commission due to the fact that:

• Whilst this may not be the case in all wards, on the whole meeting attendance rarely reflects the demographic makeup of the ward in which it is hosted and attendance has been poor - data shows a total of 611 attendees (this may include the same people attending multiple meetings) across the last three assembly meetings in 2024 across all wards.

• not all Council consultations fit in with the timeframes of all Local Assembly meetings, resulting in some emerging or ongoing issues not being aired at Assembly meetings

• work can be impacted by pre-election period restrictions at ward, regional and national levels

• residents tell us they value the information shared, but their sense of having directly influenced, shaped or contributed to firm, evidenced outcomes is limited.

• The Mayor of Lewisham has asked council officers to undertake a review of the Council’s engagement activity with the view to bring back ideas for enhanced resident engagement (see below for more details).

These factors, along with the Council’s need to make significant savings has meant that officer support for the Assemblies Programme was accepted as a saving by Mayor and Cabinet on 4 December 2024. Full details of the cut can be found here

https://councilmeetings.lewisham.gov.uk ... a%20v4.pdf page 18 onwards. Please note that the delivery of all NCIL projects – which amount to over £2.5 million of funded initiatives supporting the community across Lewisham - is unaffected by this cut and those ward-based and borough-wide projects will be delivered as normal.

The future of Lewisham’s resident engagement

The Council and local councillors have valued the contribution of those who’ve taken the time to attend and become involved in Local Assemblies and we want to make sure there are effective routes for all local people to get involved in local decision making and to share their views with the Council.

There are of course lots of ways you can already do this, from taking part in consultations and surveys, to attending our formal Council meetings and those of other local bodies like Safer Neighbourhood Boards. These will all continue. Local councillors will also still continue to run regular ward surgeries and be able to listen to and act on local concerns.

In addition, there will be new forms of resident engagement which we hope we be more engaging and reach a wider audience – including in the many communities who do not currently come to assemblies. The Mayor of Lewisham has asked council officers to undertake a review of the Council’s engagement activity. This will be carried out in phases and aims to report back to Mayor and Cabinet in the summer. We will share updates about this work in due course.

Officers will also consider the Council’s approach to community development and how existing resources can be allocated to promote local action and deliver priority programmes such as the ‘adopt a street’ initiative which are currently not resourced.

As Cabinet Lead for Culture and Communities, I would personally like to thank you for your involvement and active engagement in our Local Assemblies Programme, and recognise the importance Assemblies have played in the development of our relationship with residents over time.

A special thanks to all those residents who have been involved in coordinating groups and in the delivery of ward assembly leaflets. I am keen to hear your views about the future of resident engagement with the Council and the ideas you have. Please fill in the form here to let me know your views.

We would also like to ensure that you are kept informed and engaged in discussions as they develop about future resident engagement. In accordance with GDPR regulations, we are required to ask for your consent when collecting personal data. We collected names and postcodes in order to verify attendance numbers at Local Assemblies and to verify that these relate to the Ward where meetings happened. If you let us retain your contact details, we will use this to inform you of our plans for community engagement, to alert you to future meetings, and to notify you of events and opportunities (such as free training, funding, etc) happening in your area.

If you do not wish us to e-mail you in future, please let us know by replying to this e-mail.



Thank you again and I look forward to continued discussions with you as we move forward.



Kind regards,



Cllr Edison Huynh

Cabinet Member for Culture and Communities