South Gippsland Shire Council is reviewing its policy around community engagement. Council has asked for your feedback. They say this is also an opportunity for you to share how you want to be engaged with in the future. Council says it is committed to understanding the needs of its community and they believe that their decisions are improved through the process of community engagement.
Council says it actively seeks the input of community members when significant decisions are required to be made. They say the engagement policy ensures that Council hears a wide range of perspectives, understands the breadth of issues to consider and has access to potential solutions when decisions need to be made.
Council says it understands the importance of community engagement and that it encourages community members to be involved in government. It is expected that community members should feel they have sufficient opportunities to share their views. Council staff will apply engagement techniques, when appropriate, in a manner that is effective, timely and cost effective for the desired engagement result. Community engagement activities can be scaled to an appropriate level according to the number of those potentially affected and the resources available.
There are two types of engagement practices which may be used separately or in conjunction depending on the project matter.
Deliberative Engagement-Deliberative practices are considered when projects have long-term impacts for the community or are a source of community concern and contention. Typically, these projects have negotiable factors which allow for discussion and the generation of new ideas and solutions.
Examples of deliberative engagement activities are Online forums, Citizen panels, and Advisory groups
Participatory Engagement-Participatory practices are considered when feedback is invited on ideas and documents. These projects typically have a number of non-negotiable factors so there is a limited project scope.
Examples of participatory engagement activities include surveys and submissions.
Community Engagement Guidelines have been developed to assist staff when designing relevant engagement plans and the IAP2 Methods Matrix will be consulted when determining appropriate community engagement activities.
IAP2- International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) is an international leader in public participation that seeks to promote and improve the practice of community engagement.
Council say that when considering the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum the project is an opportunity to involve, collaborate and empower but they also say that when considering the IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum the community engagement project provides an opportunity to inform and consult.
Council has put the survey online along with an Oursay platform process where community members can put their own ideas, vote for other people’s ideas, and make submission comments that others can review and engage in.
The publishing of this survey and chance to add your comments and engage with others who take an interest in this project was only advertised through a media release two days after the survey/Oursay platform opened for its two week only timeframe for people to engage with the project. It was also advertised in the weekly Council noticeboard which it supplied as paid advertising to some of the smaller newspapers in the Shire. Many might have missed this item.
A week into the two-week timeframe the number of people who have chosen to be engaged in this is zero. How many people knew but chose not to engage or did not know and missed their chance to engage is unknown.
Editor comment: People might be of the understanding that Council wanted to engage with the community and come up with a community engagement policy that the community took part in producing-nothing could be further from the truth.
Not only did Council seemingly go out of its way to minimise opportunity for people to be aware of the opportunity to engage in the project, but they even attached the policy they have already determined to be their preferred draft version and placed it on the webpage next to the short survey. This Council jargon seems to be saying that the community needs to feel that they have opportunities to give their views to Council, but that council will do what they want anyway since they only plan to CONSULT-obtain some feedback, and INFORM-let us know what they decided.
So, Council has missed a chance to bring the community onboard on a project about engaging with the community. Then they give two weeks to review their policy version and ask for feedback. This technique has been clearly explained in their own documents when the admitted that the process is at the level of engage and consult. The nearly lowest form of engagement principles as shown on the IPA2 chart they have included in their policy draft.
Link to the Council Survey-https://oursay.org/southgippsland/community-engagement-policy-review
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