• 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

Evaluation criteria and indicators

Evaluation is based on the following logic:

Method	What techniques would we use? For example, interviews and focus groups.
Indicators	How would we measure this? For example, the estimates people make about their level of involvement.
Evaluation criteria	How would we know it had achieved this? What do we measure? For example, the extent to which community members were involved in developing new services.
Outcome (Why?)	What was the community engagement activity trying to achieve? For example, community members have ownership of new services.

Criteria are identified that would provide information about particular outcomes. They provide standards by which the practice and outcomes of engagement can be judged. Criteria are measured by indicators; specific characteristics that can be measured to show a change in criteria. Changes in indicators are measured by methods that gather and assemble data and information.

Establishing criteria

Criteria are based on the objectives of the community engagement activity. For example, to measure the ownership that community members may have of a new service as a result of community engagement activities, a criterion would be “the extent to which community members were involved in developing new services”.

Criteria can relate to a range of objectives of community engagement, such as:

• productivity or outputs
• the process of community engagement
• the intended outcomes of the community engagement activity
• the efficiency of the activity.

Establishing indicators

Indicators measure the state or condition of criteria. When you choose indicators, it is important to consider whether:

• The indicators are measurable.
• Data about the indicators can be collected within the time frame and resources of the evaluation.
• The indicators are clear and easily understood by the intended audience.
• The indicators accurately and reliably indicate what they are supposed to show.
• Issues are raised as a result of collecting data on the indicator.
• Current data is available or there are available resources and capacity to collect new data.

The following table outlines a basic set of community engagement criteria, indicators and associated methods for data collection measuring community engagement. This is an essential planning tool for evaluating community engagement.

What you want to know about (criteria)	What you would measure (indicators)	How you would measure (methods)
Information
The extent and appropriateness of information dissemination.	The access stakeholders felt they had to information. The appropriateness (according to whom?) and timeliness of information. Community awareness of project/issue.	E.g. feedback sheets, and/or a survey.
Consultation
The extent to which stakeholders were consulted. The appropriateness of consultation.	The number of people or stakeholders consulted. Stakeholder satisfaction with consultation.	E.g. interviews with a sample of stakeholders, and/or scoresheets.
Active participation
The level of participation in engagement activities. The extent to which stakeholders felt they could participate.	The number of people involved in participation events. Stakeholder satisfaction with opportunities for participation.	E.g. focus groups and/or appreciative enquiry.
Targeting of engagement
How well targeted the engagement was to appropriate stakeholders.	Whether all the relevant stakeholders were involved or were some missed. Whether the level of engagement suited the stakeholders. The breadth of stakeholders involved.	E.g. matching participation to demographics of the community. E.g. interviews with a sample of stakeholders.
Communication
The level of feedback provided to the community. The extent of two-way communication between stakeholders and government.	The extent to which information was fed back to the community after consultation. How well people felt they could express issues and suggestions.	E.g. interviews with a sample of stakeholders. E.g. feedback sheets.