2020 Vision is officially the product of BRADFORD CONGRESS (now renamed "Bradford Vision"), but is in reality the product of Bradford Council.
It sets out the local Authority's long-term "vision" for Bradford in 2020 and draws on "the biggest public consultation exercise in (Bradford's) history". The consultation process was officially launched at a "public debate" chaired by Trevor McDonald on Sept 30, 1999. The final "2020 Vision" document was unveiled on April 3 2000.
The "Vision" document itself is pretty vague - setting out a broad view of Bradford being a good place to live, work and play etc. etc. A separate document - "The District 5 year strategy" (2000-2005) - was supposed to be published shortly afterwards carrying the actual detail. To date this has not been published, but apparently does exist in "draft" form.
The "2020 Vision" strategy derives from the governments "Modernising local government" white paper (1998). The 2020 initiative was instigated by the new chief Executive Ian Stewart shortly after he arrived in the late summer of 1999.
Linked with this is the governments "Best Value" process for local authority service provision which replaced the previous "Compulsory Competitive Tendering (CCT)" process. The DETR continually restates "Best Value means that services should not be delivered directly if other more efficient and effective means are available." Bradford was one of the governments "pilot" authorities for its "Best Value" process.
The 2020 consultation process started in Autumn 1999 and finished in February 2000.
In total 7188 submissions were made - mostly through "postcards" which were distributed widely, particularly in schools. There were also a number of open meetings and "roadshows" with various interest groups. And a series of small "Business breakfast meetings" were held between Ian Stewart and various business persons.
Diane Cook was seconded from Bradford University to draw up a summery of these submissions. She produced a draft report "Key findings: 2020 Vision" dated 18 Nov 1999, but no final report was ever produced. She worked through the submissions, drawing out common or noticeable themes. She also attended many of the meetings, including all the "Business breakfast" meetings.
Bradford's "2020 Vision" is in no way unique - a similar process has been going on in other authorities ("Hackney 2020"; "Kirklees Vision"; "A Vision for Swansea"; "Vision of Reading in 2020" etc.). The results are similar and many of these authorities were "Best Value" pilots also, so there is clearly a lot of cross-referencing here.
The final report was drawn up by Phil Williams of Bradford Council and finally "tweaked" by Ian Stewart before publication.
Williams' first draft was most likely produced in late November 1999 and probably didn't change much after that. Diane Cook's draft report was produced then; most of the other authority reports were downloaded from the Internet at that time, and it followed the series of carefully minuted "breakfast business meetings" in November which seem to have been particularly influential (indeed it seems the participants got to approve the final draft before publication).
I should point out that Phil Williams has been very helpful and open with me, providing access to all the documents related to the consultation.
TG 14 March 2001
2020 Vision document (April 2000).
List of documents held on 2020 Consultation process (Jacobs Well) (22/2/01 & 9/3/01).
"Key Findings: 2020 Vision" - summary of 2020 consultation submissions (Diane Cook 18/11/99).
Minutes of "Business breakfast meetings" Oct/Nov 1999.
"Total submissions to 2020 Process" (Diane Cook 14/2/2000).
"Achieving Best Value through competition, benchmarking and performance networks" (DETR Feb 1999).
"Good practice, best value - improving local public services", (DETR Dec 1999)