Identifying opportunities for improvement
Queensland Government agencies have been undertaking community engagement in various ways and at various levels for decades and are currently delivering on the government’s community engagement priority through a diverse range of activities and programs. However, agencies have acknowledged opportunities for improvement.
A range of those opportunities were identified through the Community Engagement Improvement Strategy (2003–2004). The strategy implemented a number of initiatives including:
- producing resources and tools to assist the public sector in developing and delivering effective engagement programs and activities
- showcasing good community engagement practices
- improving engagement coordination across the public sector
- building leadership capability for more effective engagement
- building engagement skills and knowledge into recruitment and selection processes and performance management systems.
Building engagement capacity
The prerequisites to improved community engagement in Queensland are:
- an increase in the capacity of public officials to effectively engage with citizens and communities
- support for citizens and communities to build their own capacity to become involved with government.
Public officials
A mapping survey indicated that there was an ad hoc approach to community engagement training and development across Queensland Government. While some agencies offer staff training in community consultation and mentoring and leadership skills, others offer only communication training.
Many agencies offer training in various aspects of community engagement that are not often recognised as engagement related, such as community profi ling, stakeholder analysis and risk management. Individual agencies are also developing community engagement-related competencies and a range of engagement training resources and tools.
Improvements in community engagement in Queensland may require a shift, or refocus, in the role of public sector offi cers to include facilitating and fostering relationships between government, citizens and communities.
In an effort to provide a consistent training program for public offi cials, an Engaging Queenslanders: Managing Community Engagement Learning program has been developed. This enables public offi cials to obtain training across government which provides a range of practical frameworks and tools for community engagement.
Further to this training, core competencies required to facilitate community engagement have been developed for the public sector by the National Training Information Service and can be viewed at www.ntis.gov.au
The work undertaken with the Offi ce of Public Service Merit and Equity highlighted the role of public sector leaders in establishing and nurturing corporate cultures which value the role of community engagement processes in policies and services.
Finally, a community engagement recruitment, selection, retention and performance and management checklist has been developed by the Office of Public Sector Merit and Equity in an effort to provide public sector managers with tools which will enhance public sector capability in community engagement. These can be viewed at www.opsme.qld.gov.au/eig/comm_eng/second.htm
Community capacity
Improved community engagement may result in increases in government–community connections and bring into focus issues such as diversity, representativeness, inclusiveness and adequacy of planning and decision making processes during day-to-day business for an increasing number of public officials.
In order to act as strategic enablers of the change towards more effective community engagement, many public officials may require support in developing the capacity to facilitate cooperation and collaboration across Queensland Government, other levels of government, and in community and industry.
An equally important factor is the ongoing support for citizens and communities to develop their own capacity to access and understand government information and processes, to raise issues and become productively involved with government.
While it is important to identify and address the need for public sector training and community capacity development in a range of engagementrelated skills and techniques, effective community engagement activities and programs should incorporate capacity development for both government and community participants. Effective community engagement can bring new levels of experience and expertise to government and community participants involved in the processes, in a dynamic, cost-effective and integrated way.
Cultural change
In order to meet the challenges of improved community engagement, Queensland Government agencies may fi rst need to develop or affirm a culture that is supportive of more effective engagement practices. Culture can be defined as the ‘way we do things aroundhere’ and is refl ected in behaviours, systems, processes, structures and relationships, and in the ways that staff identify with their organisation’s vision and purpose.
In some circumstances, involving citizens and communities in government processes may represent a new way of doing business for public officials. It may take time and long-term commitment from agency leaders to shift the beliefs, habits and mindsets of public officials away from the way things have always been done.
When commitment, behaviours and associated practices are connected, agencies will see a real cultural shift and public offi cials may start to think of community engagement as being at the heart of agency business.
In setting the foundations for an agency culture that is supportive of more effective engagement practices, agencies may need to consider:
- defining the vision and values supporting a community engagement culture
- raising awareness among key staff about the need for the cultural shift
- aligning community engagement to the agency’s strategic direction and core business outcomes
- building community engagement skills, knowledge and capability
- continuous communication – i.e. sharing engagement stories, lessons and experiences
- ensuring that budget allocation processes and reward systems refl ect a commitment to community engagement
- celebrating engagement successes
- implementing a range of system and process changes in support of more effective community engagement.
Agency community engagement improvement checklist
The following checklist provides Queensland Government agencies with a starting point to assess community engagement practice and to identify key agency challenges and opportunities for improvements. The checklist results may be used as a baseline to inform the development of agency-specifi c community engagement improvement strategies.
- What is the primary focus of community engagement in the agency?
- How has the commitment to improved community engagement been demonstrated at Ministerial and senior management levels?
- Is the commitment to improving community engagement being communicated effectively across the agency?
- What are the formal policies and legislation that require the agency to involve citizens in planning and decision making?
- What are the mechanisms and resources that facilitate and support community engagement across the agency?
- Does community engagement form an integral part of the agency’s:
- strategic planning?
- policy development?
- service and program planning?
- policy, service and program evaluation?
- What key stakeholders is the agency currently engaging with in relation to:
- strategic planning?
- policy development?
- service and program planning?
- policy, service and program evaluation?
- Are appropriate time and resources allocated to designing, implementing and evaluating engagement activities or programs?
- Do the public sector offi cers designing and undertaking community engagement have appropriate community engagement knowledge and skills?
- What processes are in place to share community engagement lessons and experiences across the agency?
- Are engagement activities and programs well coordinated and communicated across the agency?
- Does the agency collaborate and coordinate effectively with other agencies, other levels of government, industry and community organisations around engagement activities?
- How are the agency’s engagement activities and outcomes reported?
- How are the results of engagement shared across the agency, across government and with the community?
- How do the outcomes of engagement activities and programs feed back into the agency’s future planning and decision making processes?
- Does the agency evaluate community engagement activities and programs to ensure practices are continually improving?
