This resource will help all council employees and elected members understand the ‘why’ and ‘how’ we can best engage with communities.
Reasons to engage:
- Legislation
- Council priorities
- Corporate ambition/ consistent approach
- Improve skills and confidence
- Share good practice
- Good outcomes for communities
Effective engagement can support councils to improve the services they deliver, make effective use of resources, and build more productive and positive relationships with communities.
Community engagement also builds and supports community empowerment, and this is important for individual wellbeing and resilient communities.
Community engagement has a key role in addressing equality issues and working with vulnerable, excluded, or disadvantaged groups to ensure their voices are heard.
As well as reasons to engage there could be reasons not to engage. For example,
- You have robust data which is representative of the community that your decision is impacting.
- You are not going to use the information – you could not use the information you gathered from an engagement exercise.
- You’re not sure what you are engaging about.
- There is a relevant engagement activity on this topic, you will find this on the Community engagement app – My Council Works
- You could not use the information you gathered from an engagement exercise