Sharing Prosperity with Everyone was the focus of the fourth Essex Assembly, which took place at Chelmsford Racecourse on 4th September.

Speakers shared how the vision, The Future of Essex, is being embedded across the system and how organisations are taking forward work to deliver the seven vision ambitions, including Sharing Prosperity with Everyone, which has strong links to social mobility.

Rachael Millar, Head of Secretariat Social Mobility Commission, gave the keynote speech talking about the influences on social mobility; economic opportunities; capability development; home environment; housing and infrastructure; and health – many of which are considered through the current eight Vision projects established to support the delivery of the Future of Essex. Rachael recognised the work of public sector partners across Essex as well as the growing challenges that the diversity of the county presents. You can find Rachael’s presentation here.

To create lasting change in the county we have to capture imaginations and inspire new possibilities. Creating impact requires establishing new ways of listening understanding and connecting with the people of Essex on a human level. Excitingly we had a live conference link to California to hear from Sebastian Buck, the co-founder of Enso, which has been leading work around building mission-driven brands with the likes of Google, Starbucks, and many more, and creating social impact at a scale.

Sebastian introduced participants to the concept of ‘social missions’ and offered some interesting insights and new approaches to building social capital through community and private sector engagement. He really did capture the imagination of everyone in the room inspiring leaders to have greater ambition and to establish shared missions with, and not for, our communities, geographies and the private sector. You can hear Sebastian’s audio presentation here.

Hosted by colleagues from across the system, Solution Rooms were designed to provide peer-supported advice on some of our most pressing problems and also to provide a platform for partners to collaborate on the 8 priority projects, and agree next steps to create system-wide solutions.

Pam Donnelly, Strategic Director, Colchester Borough shared insights from Young Colchester a pilot project that the Council has been running in partnership with the University of Essex to tackle anti-social behaviour among young people, improve the life chances of marginal young people, make better use of community assets and promote inclusive economic growth and prosperity. In hearing about the experience of this live partnership pilot, we were reminded of; the importance of dedicating time and energy to work together to progress transformational projects on our common challenges; the impact that can be achieved not only in delivering better outcomes for the people of Essex, but in connecting organisational ambitions, strategies and resources; and the opportunity to find sustainable place-based solutions to meeting the county's priorities. View Pam’s presentation here.

Councillor John Spence, Ian Davidson, CEO Tendring and Mike Gogarty, Public Health and Wellbeing Director, Essex County Council completed our afternoon with the launch of the Joint Essex Health and Wellbeing Strategy which sets out our approach to tackle our most challenging issues to reduce health inequality, increase life chances and support people to access and maintain employment.

Twice a year more than 150 of the county’s most senior leaders from across the public sector, universities, the voluntary and community sector and business come together at the Essex Assembly to discuss how we can all work together to deliver our shared vision for Essex.

The next Essex Assembly is taking place on 5th March 2019.