Engage the community to understand the issues

Overview

It is important for local governments to understand their communities so they can develop and deliver appropriate services and determine whether and where there is potential for issues to arise between different groups. 

Many local governments have an ongoing, proactive community engagement process. Good practice in community engagement requires local governments to:

  • Know the community to understand the characteristics of the people who live and work in the local government area and if and how this might change over time
  • Engage the community to identify existing or potential areas for development and build on current strengths 
  • Be representative and inclusive to ensure all voices are heard
  • Identify the issues to determine whether there is, or is the potential for, tension which can undermine social cohesion.

Know the community

Information about the community, generally defined by geography and demography as those who those who live, work, study and play in the local area, is a prerequisite to ensuring local government is representative and inclusive. This requires a comprehensive analysis of the community, including majority and minority cultural groups.

Importantly, local governments need to look beyond countries of birth and languages spoken at home in identifying culturally diverse populations, as these measures will not reflect second and third generation Australians from migrant backgrounds or Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples. 

The City of Charles Sturt has a population of around 110,000 and a long history as a multicultural area. Council has a Cultural Diversity Policy and its website has customised tools compiled by .id® which can be used to undertake cultural and demographic mapping of the region's diversity. 

It is the first council in South Australia to include very detailed information about Aboriginal Australians and their culture on its website.

Source: City of Charles Sturt (n.d). Community profile.

Local governments do not need to 'reinvent the wheel' in order to know the community. Some local governments regularly collect information about the community, its needs and aspirations, however preliminary information gathering from the community may be required if there is inadequate information available. 

Build on the work already undertaken as part of strategic planning and previous community engagement and avoid over-consultation.

Use this template to map the community and assess diversity.

The template can be used internally or as part of discussions with the community.

Engage the community 

Engagement is about creating formal and informal opportunities for listening and responding to community needs. An engaged community, committed to building strong relationships, is both a short and long-term asset for local government. However, creating an engaged community often requires local governments to ensure the community has the capacity to participate. 

Community engagement is an investment in the future and if done well should lead to the participation of a wide range of stakeholders. Local governments need to take a holistic view and engage:

  • Members of both the majority and minority cultural groups
  • Retail outlets
  • Businesses
  • Schools and places of learning
  • Clubs, youth groups and sports groups
  • Places of worship
  • Police
  • Local NGOs
  • Other levels of government.

Community engagement helps to identify the issues which might affect social cohesion and understand where tensions may exist between individuals or groups. 

The City of Geraldton has a population of about 42,000 people with an established Aboriginal community (10% of total population) and an increasing percentage of new arrivals from India, Africa, Vietnam and the Philippines (21% of total population). 

In the 2029 and Beyond Program thousands of people were asked about their dreams and desires for the city. After two and half years of consultation, it was clear that people wanted more involvement in decision-making and the #changesCGGcommunity program was established to ensure citizens were engaged in a more democratic way in the management of the City.

#changesCGGcommunity is based on the principles of deliberative democracy and participatory budgeting in which community panels review and prioritise the City's community infrastructure and services projects. 

After successfully creating a Capital Works Priority List and making recommendations on City services, the community assisted the City to review the range of non-mandatory services. As part of this, 100 people were recruited to participate in a community summit. The participants were selected from four different groups: people who self-selected; a randomly selected representative sample; key stakeholder representatives; and people who participated in previous community panel processes. 

The process involved:

  • A three-hour workshop introducing the city's services, outlining the deliberative democracy process, explaining their task and understanding and contributing to community values criteria. It also involved training people to use specific software to allow them to vote on the services they want to fund
  • A six-hour workshop to deliberate the importance and value of non-mandatory services and then a vote on these non-mandatory services.

In order to ensure inclusiveness, the City provided transport to and from the summit for the participants who live over 100km away (primarily Aboriginal people) and supported families by offering childcare during the workshops.

The outcomes, apart from getting input from the community, included higher levels of community participation, an inclusive process and building a sense of social cohesion amongst people from different backgrounds who might not otherwise interact.

Sources: City of Greater Geraldton (n.d.). 2029 And Beyond: A vision by and for the community of Greater Geraldton City.

Personal communication with Coordinator Community Development, City of Greater Geraldton (2015).

Other resources for community engagement include:

For smaller rural, remote and regional local governments: Online community engagement toolkit for rural remote and Indigenous councils.

Various community engagement techniques: Engaging Queenslanders: A guide to community engagement methods and techniques.

Working with diverse communities: Engaging Queenslanders: An introduction to working with culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) communities.

Working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples communities: Engaging Queenslanders: Introduction to working with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.

Be representative and inclusive

Stakeholder engagement processes will reveal individuals and community groups that claim to represent the views of others. They can be well organised, knowledgeable, politically connected and articulate. Whilst they add value to the process, great care has to be taken to ensure that they do not dominate, thereby disenfranchising those who are less articulate or those who for various reasons may not readily participate.

Representative

Being representative means attempting to ensure those who participate broadly reflect the demographics of the community – both the majority and minority groups. It is also important to consider what the characteristics and demographics of the community may be in future. 

The City covers 34 square kilometres, with around 145,000 residents and has a very culturally diverse population with people from over 129 different countries. Almost half were born overseas. Of those born overseas 45% are from countries where English is not the first language and 64% speak a language other than English at home.

The English proficiency of new arrivals is much lower than in other parts of Sydney and 15% of people who speak another language report difficulty with speaking English. 30% of the City's residents speak English only compared to 62% for the rest of Sydney.

As such, some residents experience difficulty in identifying and articulating their needs and accessing information, services and opportunities provided by Council, other government agencies and community organisations. 

In response, the Council has an Advocacy in Community Services Policy which aims to ensure that vulnerable people within the community have access to information about appropriate opportunities for self-advocacy or support from an appropriate independent advocate.

Source: Canterbury City Council (2008). Advocacy in Community Services Policy.

Inclusive

Being inclusive means ensuring everyone who may have an interest in the outcome of a process has an opportunity to participate. Apart from organisations or spokespeople for specific interest groups, consider groups who may normally be excluded or underrepresented such as children, young people, women, older people, people with disabilities, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples, homeless people and people from culturally and linguistically diverse backgrounds.

Identify the issues

Once key stakeholders have been identified and efforts made to be representative and inclusive, local governments can work with the community to understand current and potential issues affecting social cohesion. 

This involves working together to identify:

  • Any current tensions between different groups in the community which may impact community cohesion
  • The potential for disharmony based on the current composition of the community
  • The potential for issues to arise in the longer term based on an understanding of what the community might look like in future.

Combining ABS census data with existing or new information from community engagement activities can be a powerful way to identify priority areas to address. A discussion guide may also help guide conversations internally and externally.

Use this template in discussions with the community or internally with staff to uncover potential issues which may cause conflict now or in the future.

The template could be used in focus groups, included in a manual or used in a phone or online survey.

Regular environmental scanning will ensure that local government is well informed about developments outside the local area that may affect social cohesion. This process should take account of, for example, state and federal government migration and policies and settlement planning processes and also information about conflicts in the countries of origin of new migrant groups which may cause tension locally. 

Community profiles: The Australian Government Department of Social Services has produced a series of community profiles to help service providers better understand the backgrounds and needs of Humanitarian Program arrivals. Read these to find out the demographic characteristics of recent arrivals, likely settlement needs and cultural and country backgrounds.

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