Dudley Borough has a long history of partnership working. From the late eighties, joint planning teams consisting of Local Authority, Health Authority and Voluntary Sector staff engaged service users / carers in the planning of local health and social care provision.
It was however, in the early nineties that a wider range of agencies came together formally to address regeneration and Dudley Partnership was formed. Chaired independently by the Bishop of Dudley, its brief was to collectively tackle unemployment, training, regeneration and inward investment and it drew together Chairmen and Chief Executives from a number of significant players.
In the mid/late nineties the Partnership remit began to change in order to meet the requirements of the emerging Neighbourhood Renewal Fund and the National Lotteries Board Fair Share allocations. These initiatives had wider implications, which for the first time included a specific community focus.
In 2000, Dudley was required to have an accredited Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) in order to receive Neighbourhood Renewal Funding (NRF) from central Government. It was decided that the nucleus of the existing Partnership Board would become Dudley’s LSP, with a revision of its Board members including the reduction of local authority representation and the increased representation from the private, voluntary and community sectors and other public sector bodies. It was agreed that Dudley’s LSP should be called ‘Dudley Community Partnership’, to reflect the partnership commitment to working with, and being inclusive of representation from, the voluntary and community sector.
From this time on, the work of Local Strategic Partnerships continued to increase as Government directed more and more regeneration and renewal initiatives and responsibilities their way. As a result the Dudley Community Partnership began and has continued to review its structure and general operation with current activities and structure as contained within this website. 