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‘We told you all of this when you were here six months ago’, the farmer complained loudly to murmurs of agreement from around the hall.
Engaging communities and stakeholders too much, or failing to build on previous engagement activities, can be as bad as not engaging at all.
We often hear high-profile examples of communities and stakeholders complaining of not being engaged, but in reality there’s a lot of engagement going on and it’s important to be aware of this.
Nothing seems to rile people more than being asked for input time and time again, yet not being able to see the impact of their previous contributions.
Knowing the history involves:
Knowledge of previous government involvement in a community or with stakeholders is vital. This should include activity by:
- all tiers of government (often people do not distinguish between the three)
- all government agencies (their names often change and this can be confusing for the community).
Often, a lot of uncoordinated engagement activity occurs which contributes to consultation fatigue – where communities are over consulted. This gets worse when their previous feedback has not been included in or has not influenced past decisions.
To avoid community ‘disengagement’ identify previous projects, how they intersect with the current process and decide if a new process is required.
Where possible, build on the outcomes of previous engagements.
Corporate knowledge of previous engagements can be hard to obtain. To help:
- look for significant government projects undertaken in the recent past which may have spurred engagement.
- identify practitioners who have worked in the community and have existing knowledge
- find reports and outcomes based on those engagements and use these to influence your own work.
Identify how previous projects intersect with the current process and decide if a new process is required.
Where possible, build on the outcomes of previous engagements.
Other ways to find out the history of the issue you are engaging on include:
- Accessing the YourSAy website – where you will find important information from previous government engagements
- Connecting to other agencies - talk to your peers as well as the communication teams who will be a good source of corporate knowledge.
- Accessing the state government archives
- Talking to consultants that run engagement processes for government – who can provide new perspectives of projects they may have worked on.
