Case Study: Community Engagement: Ingredients for Success

What does it take to really engage local communities in local governance? What do local authorities need to consider when involving the community?

Background

The Home Office is currently working with a number of Civic Pioneer Authorities to examine how they have developed and are developing their approaches to engaging local people in shaping public policies and services. This project was designed to use the experiences of the Civic Pioneers to develop an understanding of what 'ingredients' work together in order to help achieve successful engagement.

Our Approach

The project involved a three-stage methodology. Stage one was an online bulletin board, open to the 21 Civic Pioneers. For the second stage we chose six diverse Case Study areas where we conducted interviews with six to ten key figures within the councils and their partner organisations, and two discussion groups with members of the public who have been involved through local engagement structures. The final stage was a concept testing workshop in London, attended by representatives of the Home Office, ODPM, SQW and, of course, the Civic Pioneers, with whom we

The central reasons for this approach were;

• The online discussion allowed geographically dispersed participants to engage with the main topics being explored by the project. It provided background information to inform the later stages of the research.
• In the second stage, the case study approach was designed to allow us indepth insight into each area and the careful choice of six different authorities ensured we were able to see how local characteristics interplayed with the key ingredients identified.
• The final 'concept testing workshop' was integral to the project as it enabled all relevant stakeholders to be involved in the development of the final set of ingredients. This ensured that they were grounded in the language and experiences not just of those people in the case study areas but also those from central Government and from the other Civic Pioneer authorities.

All the information collated throughout the process was then drawn together in one draft report. At this point, all participants across the three stages were invited to submit feedback on the draft report to ensure it was a fair representation of their views before it was finalised.

Outcomes

Civic Pioneers see engagement primarily as a way to improve services, but find measuring the impact challenging; particularly in terms of intangible outcomes.

Successful engagement requires:

• Encouragement persuading people to come;
• Enablers ensuring that they are able to come;
• Empowerment making sure that engaging has an impact; and,
• Less jargon.

Nine key ingredients emerged as important success factors in public engagement:

• There are four core ingredients: leadership and champions; organisational culture and structure; local involvement structures; and, agency partnership working;
• Underlying these four ingredients are money/resources which are not enough in themselves to make engagement a success, but without them successful engagement can prove difficult;
• Finally, there are four secondary ingredients: community drive or leadership; targets; single issues; and stability, all of which

Comments

Comments from participants at the close of the day included:

A civic pioneer is in essence a ,local authority committed to the ethos of community engagement, regarding participatory democracy not as a threat or substitute for, but a vital complement to representative democracy. Together we can

I thought the research report was excellent — it's structured well and a nice, easy read — but also full of really useful and important information. Civic Pioneer