To support the next phase of Knowsley 2030 delivery, the Knowsley Better Together Board today has endorsed a recommendation to deliver an annual summit.
The annual summit will support the Board to manage the overall strategic direction for the Knowsley 2030 Strategy by convening a wider group of stakeholders, refocus collective efforts, and align partnership action against the priorities in the refreshed Knowsley 2030 Strategy.
Summits have already proven valuable in Knowsley. For example, those led by Knowsley’s Community Safety Partnership brought partners together to explore how shared action could reduce crime and improve residents’ quality of life. These sessions strengthened shared understanding of local challenges, supported alignment around early intervention and prevention, and informed subsequent improvements in community safety approaches.
The Summit will focus on a key theme, aimed to deliver maximum value for partners and residents, it is essential that it is centred on a theme with the potential to drive meaningful and measurable impact.
Taking into account the refreshed Knowsley 2030 Strategy, recent local and national policy developments and the breadth of current partnership activity, an exploration of the barriers to education offers the strongest potential to catalyse change across the whole system.
Focusing on tackling these barriers and unlocking education opportunities provides a unifying theme that cuts across every 2030 priority – from improving early years development and educational achievement, to supporting family resilience, health and wellbeing, community safety, and long-term economic prosperity. It enables partners to explore underlying structural issues such as poverty, attendance, SEND needs, mental health, family circumstances including unofficial caring responsibilities, and wider social determinants, rather than viewing educational outcomes in isolation. This approach also reflects the growing national emphasis on tackling inequalities through multi-agency collaboration and early intervention.
A range of stakeholders including schools, health providers, social care, community organisations, employment and skills partners and local businesses would generate shared insight, unlock joint solutions, and strengthen collective ownership of actions that support children and young people to thrive.
At today’s Board meeting it was agreed that the first summit, to be arranged in June 2026, will focus on “unlocking education opportunities”.