• Community engagement in context
  • Community engagement - an overview
  • Community engagement in a representative democracy
  • Key challenges for the public sector
  • Implications for public sector managers
  • The context for engagement
  • Clues to good community engagement
• Planning CE
  • Community engagement and the policy/planning cycle
  • Project goals
  • When is engagement necessary?
  • Community engagement objectives
  • Community research
    • Media research
    • Community profiling
    • Community segmentation
    • Community and issues analysis
  • Key communication messages
  • Selection of engagement techniques
  • Managing risk
  • Evaluation planning
  • Planning transition and exit strategies
• Implementing CE
  • Working with communities
  • Organisational culture
  • Resourcing
  • Structures and processes
  • Continuity and follow up
  • Representation and control
  • Coordination
  • Other issues
  • Embedding good practice
• Methods
  • Overview of methods
  • Methods of information-sharing
  • Methods for consultation and deliberation
  • Methods for active participation
  • Advanced participative methodologies
  • Choosing an engagement method
• Event management
  • Event engagement processes
  • Choosing a facilitator
  • Structuring the event
• Evaluating CE
  • Introduction to evaluation
  • Principles of evaluation
  • Identifying outputs and outcomes
  • Purpose and approach to evaluation
  • Evaluation criteria and indicators
  • Methods of measuring community engagement
  • Steps in evaluating community engagement
• Risk management
  • Identifying risks
  • Assessing risk
  • Managing external risks
  • Managing internal risks
  • Risk assessment and management plan
• Skills
  • Community engagement skills profile
  • Options for skills development
  • Building the skills of your team

Community engagement – an overview

Community engagement refers to the many ways in which government connects with citizens in the development and implementation of policies, programs and services. Community engagement is reflected in the Queensland Government’s priorities.

The results of community engagement activities can be used to inform:

• government policy-making
• cross-agency strategy, policy implementation and evaluation
• the budget process
• program planning, management and evaluation
• local planning and action
• community-based projects and activities.

Benefits of community engagement

Genuine and effective community engagement has benefits for both government and citizens, including:

• providing wider access to information, resources and networking opportunities
• improving decision-making and outcomes by enabling input by a wider range of communities and stakeholders
• the opportunity to tap into local knowledge about what is likely to work and what is not
• allowing government to better understand the complex issues in communities and citizens to better understand the processes of government
• enabling government to deliver effective and sustainable policies and programs
• providing opportunities to identify what is working and what is not working in government service delivery
• providing opportunities for co-learning and reflection that builds capacity in both the community and the government to support both current and future initiatives
• raising community awareness of the range of demands on public money and processes
• increasing government’s ability to have productive dialogue with communities and citizens on key issues
• promoting better democracy
• achieving outcomes by generating behavioural change within government and the community
• increasing transparency and accountability in engagement that can strengthen community trust in public institutions.

Community engagement drivers and trends

A range of international drivers and trends are encouraging governments to improve community engagement in planning and decision-making. They include:

• Concerns about low levels of trust and confidence in government. As communities and governments have grown in diversity and complexity, real or perceived disconnections have increased and levels of trust and confidence in government and public institutions have decreased.
• Community expectations for government to be responsive, accountable and effective. There is continuing pressure on governments to deliver increased efficiencies through more tailored and better coordinated policies, programs and services.
• Acknowledgement of the challenges of rapid social change and of the need to bridge the gap between the well-off and well-connected and the socially and economically disadvantaged.
• The realisation that government does not have the expertise, resources or influence to solve all issues.

Several other global trends are contributing to a growing interest in community engagement, including:

• rising education levels
• increasing interest in seeing more citizen opinions and values reflected in government policies and decisions
• the changing nature of community and non-government organisations
• changes brought about by technology, providing opportunities for fast and direct communication between citizens and public officials.

Principles of engagement

Six guiding principles provide the basis for improved community engagement in Queensland Government processes:

• Inclusiveness – connecting with those who are hardest to reach
• Reaching out – changing the ways government and community work together for the better
• Mutual respect – listening, understanding and acting on experiences different from our own
• Integrity – engagement as a means of promoting integrity in the democratic processes of government
• Affirming diversity – changing the processes of government to incorporate diverse values and interests
• Adding value – government and citizens working productively together to add value in policy development and program and service planning.

Levels of engagement

Community engagement covers a broad spectrum of interactions, ranging from one-way information sharing, to two-way consultation, to active participation in decision-making processes.

Government and communities can engage each other at different levels along a continuum of increasing engagement.

• Information sharing is a one-way relationship in which government disseminates information to citizens.
• Consultation is a two-way relationship in which government seeks the views of citizens on policies, programs and services.
• Active participation involves citizens in shaping policy, programs and services.

Whilst there is some encouragement for agencies to consider engagement strategies which are more consultative or involve greater community participation, each of the levels of engagement is appropriate to achieve particular outcomes. At times it will be necessary to engage at two or more levels to achieve the desired outcomes.

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