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We want the town of Canning to be a pleasant, safe and liveable place. To make decisions about what that might look like, we need to work together and listen to each other. When we do that well, we call it effective community engagement. Let's talk about what that is exactly…
When a decision has to be made about something that affects us, we often have different ideas about how the decision should turn out. We all have different wishes and needs. One of our basic human needs is participation, that is, the right to have a say in decisions that affect us.
So what is community engagement anyway? Well, effective community engagement has two really important aspects: speaking and listening. It's also not about one person speaking and drowning out everyone else. Good community engagement is a two-way conversation. A dialogue where many voices are heard and expressed. With effective community engagement, you're not sure what the outcome might be if you engage in it, because the conversation will influence the outcome. It requires speaking, listening, and understanding on all sides of the conversation.
Our vision as the City of Canning is to become an engaged organisation that understands community values and priorities. We recognise the need to listen and collaborate to collectively create sustainable solutions and a city we are proud of. Public participation in Council decision-making is key to good governance, recognising the collective knowledge and ability of the community to deliver better outcomes.
We want to hear from the community about how we can improve or create services, facilities and infrastructure. When setting the vision and direction for the town, we want to hear the values and priorities of our community now and in the future, as in the case of the Community Strategic Plan. We will also engage the community as part of statutory requirements such as the Local Government Act, the Planning and Development Act and the Local Planning Scheme.
To better engage our community, we have chosen five guiding principles to keep us on the right path:
• Inclusiveness and accessibility
• Integrity
• Communication and information
• Evaluation and adaptability
• Up-to-dateness
Now I'll tell you a little more about what we mean by each of these…
1. Inclusiveness and accessibility – we must ensure that people who are affected by or have an interest in a decision have the opportunity to have a say.
2. Integrity – this means being open to different views and being honest about the level of engagement. For example, can the decision really be influenced by this conversation or are we really just relaying information about a decision that has already been made? We also need to be open about how the community's input influenced the final decision.
3. Communication and information – it is important to provide people with the information so that they can fully participate and it is clear to them why and how they can participate. We need to make sure they are aware of the kind of constraints we face, for example financial costs or future projections or situations like climate change or resource scarcity and growing demands on our planet's limited resources.
4. Evaluation and adaptability – we need to learn from our community engagement projects what really worked and what didn't. It's important that we document these and continually look for new ways to talk to our community in a way that they want to participate in.
5. Timeliness – we should allow enough time for planning and involvement so that the conversation can actually influence the decision if necessary and involvement takes place at the right time. For example, not during school holidays, the Christmas break or at a time when a decision has already been made.
These are the principles that should guide our engagement in the community.
For more information, see our Community Engagement Strategy (what we want to achieve), Policy (how we will achieve it), Plan (a template to prepare for and deliver engagement) and Guide (in case you need a little help). Visit Your Say Canning and start the conversation http://yoursaycanning.com.au/.
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