What would you like to see from government agencies to improve engagement practices?
'It's More Than Talk' suggests government can take action in four areas: Government and organisational commitment, and building government capability and community capacity.
Government commitment ideas include:
• Establish a joint Ministers group to explore ways to progress commitment in the Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship
• Agencies include commitments to participatory processes in their Statements of Intent (eg: show how they intend to work with other organisations in order to achieve their outcomes)
• Chief Executives’ Letters of Expectations include actions to respond to the Statement of Government Intentions for an Improved Community-Government Relationship as appropriate to the relevant department.
• The Cabinet Office guidance in the Cabinet Manual be altered to explicitly encourage agencies to involve community voices in policy development.
• The OCVS, State Services Commission and the Office of the Auditor-General work together to identify/develop mechanisms to monitor progress.
• Government agencies take a more joined-up approach to consultation through joint initiatives such as roadshows on a range of issues/topics.
Organisational commitment ideas include:
• Government agencies follow Standards for Effective Engagement to develop and monitor their engagement practices. (See the proposed Standards online.)
• Defined characteristics of effective organisations shape agency behaviour (see Figures 5 & 6 on page 23)
• Appointing the “right staff” based on a defined characteristics of staff who engage effectively (See proposed Characteristics online)
Ideas to build government capability include:
• Training and induction
• Written and web resources
• Secondments, internal seminars, internal advisors, and better access to external expertise.
Ideas to build community capacity include:
• Supporting skill development in community agencies by including community stakeholders in government policy and engagement training programmes.
• Developing an up-to-date analysis of the community development support available from government agencies and case studies of good practice in supporting community-led development.
Do you agree with ideas for the way ahead in Section 4?
What is missing?
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hoki Comment 1 13 Feb 2009, 4:50 PM
These ideas have merit, but with the stripping out of community rights from the Resource Management Act, who can believe that these would really be done?
tinsim Comment 1.1 14 Feb 2009, 12:02 PM
Perhaps with less government administration and more investment in community, outcomes would be more visiable than those currently with administration processes designed to keep officials in work and less on getting the work done?
TheReader Comment 2 20 Feb 2009, 11:26 AM
Actions that make a real change to behaviours in the public service are needed so that effective community engagement is 'normalised' and built in to all develpment work. (e: training, induction, cabinet manaual changes, etc).
Government agencies also need to be forced to use the Consultations page at http://newzealand.govt.nz/participate/have-your-say/consultations/. This is usually virtually empty. The fact that there is no one place that citizens, community groups AND public servants can go to see what consultations are underway and which ones have occurred in recent years is woefully inadequate. The space has been created but no-one uses it. This could help avoid consultation fatigue, or agencies duplicating community meetings etc unnecessarily.
Actions that make a real change to behaviours in the public service are needed so that effective community engagement is 'normalised' and built in to all develpment work. (e: training, induction, cabinet manaual changes, etc).Government agencies also need to be forced to use the Consultations page at
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carolh Comment 2.1 28 Feb 2009, 3:03 PM
It's difficult, even with the best of intentions, to co-ordinate consultations as there will always be different drivers and needs but a simple solution would be to have a system that takes feeds from the different agency websites to populate the Consultations page mentioned by TheReader. If agencies also have the ability to forward plan within the system, that would also improve the sharing of information across agencies and help reduce duplication.
quade Comment 2.2 17 Mar 2009, 8:50 AM
Talking about engagement is not engagement. Real engagement is built on personal relationships which take time to develop. There are no quick fixes.
NewUser3 Comment 3 20 Feb 2009, 12:29 PM
Ultimately if there not clear goals and performance indicators written into Statements of Intent, and other high level accountability documents, nothing will change. There also needs to compliance checking - eg random auiting of the community engagement that departments report they undertook (in much the same way as a financial audit is done). Unless proper accountability is in place departments will contract 'wordsmiths' to write their annual reports so that "a used paper bag sounds like a silk purse."
quade Comment 3.1 17 Mar 2009, 9:13 AM
Without some way of verifying that genuine community engagement is happening, and audits carried out by people who have some understanding and commitment to community engagement is a good way, it is too easy for all parties including community organizations to just check boxes rather than examine how their actions achieve goals.
mervransom Comment 4 9 Mar 2009, 2:35 PM
* All stakeholders identified and welcomed to 'engage'?
* Community input into Terms of Reference (that is, from the outset)
* Policy Analysts and MP's in particular, binding recommendation of genuine consultation?
* Privacy Act/Official Information Act provisions widened?
advisor01 Comment 5 27 Mar 2009, 9:06 AM
Local government and community boards often have better networks within communities from which "real" engagement could be leveraged.
Why not devolve community engagement to those closest to communities of interest and form Government /local government/ community partnerships to deliver on community engagement. Resource networks and engagement at local level and not only would funds be saved but communities could benefit from effective networks, up skilling in engagement practices, better democratic processes and engagement at truly local levels.
Engagement must also occur before, during and after policy is created if it is to reflect the true purpose of community engagement.
Local government and community boards often have better networks within communities from which "real" engagement could be leveraged. Why not devolve community engagement to those closest to communities of interest and form Government /local government/ community partnerships to deliver on community engagement.
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