Themes

Officer response

Improving engagement with underrepresented communities

Commitment statement has been included in the Policy to outline Council’s promise to the community on engaging with harder to reach communities, which was informed by community feedback received.

Improving reporting for Council decisions and reporting back to the community.

Principle on improving how engagement results are reported back to Council has been reworded to strengthen engagement reporting and include reporting back to the community on decisions of Council, which was an addition from community feedback received.

The Policy also introduces data analysis (segmentation) to better understand the viewpoint of communities who are most impacted and provides guidance to Officers in reporting back on engagements.

Commitment statement has been included in the Policy to outline Council’s promise to the community on improving engagement reporting to Council, with the additional point of reporting back to the community on decisions of Council, which was informed by community feedback received.

Improving engagement process including survey design, representation, in the community events, reporting and transparency.

Policy has been amended to reflect the commitment to review how engagement questions are designed and ensure they meet community expectations, and to ensure that campaign-driven responses and templated submissions made by advocacy groups are highlighted to improve transparency in engagement reports.

Providing more in-person opportunities

Engagement Matrix section in the Policy does include the requirement of in-person pop-up events and targeted sessions for all categories that involve broad community consultation.

As part of the implementation, the engagement toolkit will provide guidance to Officers on the different ways to engage with the community in-person and how to maximise attendance.

Connecting better with hard-to-reach groups in convenient locations

Council will support more pop-up events in various public spaces including neighbourhood houses across the City and ensure Bicultural Liaison Officers (BLO’s) support these events.

In addition, our engagement toolkit will provide guidance on locations for pop-ups and established community groups including neighbourhood houses that Officers can contact.

Improving accessibility and equity (more translation), and involvement of bicultural workers and interpreters

The Policy does include a focus on making our engagements more accessible and includes commitment statements to encourage and ensure participation from our culturally and linguistically diverse communities (CALD). In addition, our Engagement toolkit will include guidance to ensure this process is streamlined.

Increasing involvement of Advisory Committees in engagement process.

Policy has been amended to emphasise importance of stakeholder groups including advisory committees in engagements.

Council will ensure involvement of advisory committees (two-way conversations) moving forward and work is already underway with the Secretariats to take more policies and strategies to the Committees for their early input and increased involvement in engagements.

Preference of providing feedback and finding out about engagement opportunities.

Engagement Matrix section in the Policy does include the requirement of in-person pop-up events and targeted sessions alongside online methods for all categories that involve broad community consultation.

The Policy implementation (engagement toolkit) will include guidance on the different ways to engage online and in-person and promote with the community.