UK Consult

Explore examples demonstrating the importance of organisations continuing, or getting back into, conversations and consultations with community and stakeholders in the online space. How do you manage deliberative workshops online? How do you do in-depth face to face meetings with stakeholders online?

From fan engagement to resident consultation, organisations across the country are seeing the value of continuous conversations and involvement from their stakeholders. Housing associations are harnessing the power of digital engagement to maintain connectedness with their residents and keep them involved in ongoing decision making during this period of uncertainty. Barking and Dagenham Council have utilised online engagement in the launch of their Be First project, an inspiring and creative competition for children to create art in response to the changes taking place around them. This project has provided families an innovative way to get involved in activities together and create community cohesion outside of the typical dry consultation we often see. See the Be First Project > https://yourcall.befirst.london/gascoigne-yourplace-competition

As we ask more and more people to provide input and connect together in the online space, privacy and security standards are more important than ever before. Participants need to feel confident they are contributing in a safe space where personal information is secure and comments are moderated for protection against harassment and inappropriate messages.

Tune in to learn how communities and organisations across the UK are building cohesive environments with online communities.

The concept of #NotAnotherSurvey has taken hold in the UK as industries and organisations are utilising technology that can take engagement and consultation to the next level by gathering more meaningful feedback with digital tools designed for open and creative public input.

With a number of buzzwords and new terms circulating the industry, we dive into a few that seem to be making an impact and changing the current tide of online consultation.


-'Rapid Online Deliberation': In-depth and deep engagement online over a short period of time, due to quick decisions needing to be made by local leaders around COVID-19. We have seen deliberative opinion polls created to analyse how attitudes change over the duration of a consultation, executed by launching surveys at the beginning and end of a project. 


-Building 'Online Communities' has been a common theme this week, predominantly in the education sector, as students and teachers have moved to online classrooms and need a way to maintain a sense of community while lesson structures change.



-Many professional bodies who previously spent a lot of face to face time at events have been discussing 'Member Engagement' and replicating these events in a safe and moderated online space with the help of digital engagement platforms.

-Explore the difference between 'Synchronous' and 'Asynchronous' digital consultation, as well as the creative shift we expect to see between the two, as this new normal of virtual interactions set in.

Tune in to hear how these ideas are leading to positive and impactful changes in the digital consultation world.

The District Council of Yankalilla in South Australia gathered public input as they began planning for the community's future. Using a variety of community engagement methods and one central digital engagement platform, elected officials were able to make more informed decisions by including voices from across the community.

What we'll learn from Yankalilla:

-Growth of internal buy-in and how elected members became more invested in community engagement

-Engaging with youth

-How utilising an external engagement facilitator affected the process and benefited community, council, and the engagement team

-Making direct mail, social, traditional in-person, and digital engagement work together

-How times and locations of community meetings helped drive higher attendance

-Building trust and transparency

We engage communities for better decision-making, however, along the way it is important to realise, this engagement also builds community and resilience. In this podcast, you’ll hear about friendships being forged and common ground discovered among Yankalilla neighbours during this engagement process.

As part of their new training course, Smart Engagement Techniques for the 2020s, Nick Duffin from The Consultation Institute (TCI) has invited Jonathan Bradley, Practice Lead at Bang the Table UK and TCI Fellow, to answer questions and provide insight into best practice digital inclusion and online participation. This podcast is a recording of Jonathan’s candid response.

Tune into this podcast for answers to the following questions;

1. What is 'digital inclusion'?

2. Why is digital inclusion so important?

3. Where can we emulate offline qualitative events online? And how?

4. What are the most effective ways of involving people online?

5. What online facilities will young people, the elderly, and the vulnerable use?

6. Are there software packages that incorporate all these things?

7. What should we be looking for in online solutions?

With a real desire to enrich their engagement, Coventry City Council wanted to move on from black-box Survey feedback to a more open way of communicating with their community. They wanted something which allowed a multimedia approach to inform the public with useful documents, photos, and videos. Let’s Talk Coventry became their convenient location where all of their consultations and engagement could live.

When discussing Coventry’s project around a new rough sleeping policy, “We have built up a wonderful Q&A where the general public have been asking us tough and searching questions, as well they should. What we have been able to do with that is demonstrate good faith and a willingness to do what we can by answering them in a public way and that is one of the best things I love about the Q&A tool.” James Sampson-Foster, Analyst Engagement Insight Team, Coventry City Council, “The feedback we have received from the public is fantastic. People are reading our strategies that we put up … And they are reading them line by line. They are giving us intelligent, well-considered feedback.”

What we’ll cover:


-Managing risk and finding the opportunity within

-How moderation in online engagement opens the door to more meaningful feedback

-Homelessness and scarcity of housing

-Engagement Platform vs. Social Media

-Introducing online engagement to your organization and community

-Internal Buy-In

“It’s the role of government to do what we cannot or should not do alone.” Nick Kittle, Cartegraph.

Casey Earp, Bang the Table, and Nick Kittle, Cartegraph, discuss the 5 tenets of High Performance Government and the most efficient and effective ways organizations can positively impact their community. The concept of High Performance Government is the commitment that we make to continue to better ourselves as a government to the people we serve.

The 5 tenants of High Performance Government:

1. Building Effective and Innovative Teams

2. Building Efficient Processes

3. Creating Measurable, Actionable Results

4. Doing this all in a way that is clear and accountable to our residents

5. Engaging our Community

“We feel that these 5 tenants are the things that allow governments to really elevate and deliver services to citizens in the best way possible.” - Nick Kittle, Cartegraph.

What we’ll discuss:

-Building a culture of transparency

-Establishing Pilot Programs

-Productivity & Time Management

-Rethinking how we are committing our resources

-Closing the loop

-When to engage

-Successful implementation post-training

-Embedding community engagement into organizational culture

-Tips for growing your database and audience

-How to make a difference as an individual

When the City of Marion wanted to gather ideas from their community, the first suggestion was a survey. However, because EngagementHQ can collect participant information (name, suburb, etc) when the resident signs up, it made more sense and provided more meaningful feedback for the City to use the Ideation tool in this instance as they were gathering ideas around one topic. Once they begin gathering ideas, they can then talk to the particpant(s) and expand on the idea making the process much more efficient than a broad question and answer survey.

“EngagementHQ has really helped us at the end of a project to close the loop and provide feedback to those that have been involved. Once you close a project you can still update the page.” - Andrew Coulson, City of Marion

As organisations become more sophisticated, we are seeing more of a staged approach to engagement within their communities, providing more opportunity for “Early Engagement.” In this podcast, we will take a deeper dive into the various stages of engagement that can ultimately give you more actionable feedback along your project's journey.

What we’ll discuss:

-Identify the Purpose & Defining your Method

-Working with Project Management teams

-Stages of Engagement

-Timing

-Gaining Organizational Buy-In

-Tips for Comment Analysis Tagging

-Closing the Loop

-Tool Selection

-Incorporating IAP2 Spectrum into your plan and presenting to the community

“At the end, the biggest learning was that they [the community] just wanted to know what happened to the information they provided and how the decision was made after they were engaged… people feeling valued and heard.” - Patrice Pearson, City of Marion.

How does Community Engagement compare across US and UK markets and what can they learn from each other?

Bang the Table Engagement Practice Leads, Amanda Nagl USA, and Jonathan Bradley UK, dive into the similarities and differences the United States and United Kingdom markets experience when it comes to community engagement practices and results. One has laws protecting the fairness and execution of proper engagement across the country while the other creates policy at a localized level.

Tune into this podcast to hear what practices work in varying areas across the world and take away new best practice techniques for your community.

Young Americans have the most to gain or lose when it comes to the fiscal decisions being made today in Congress. America’s debt is around $22 trillion and climbing. This unprecedented debt level threatens the economy young people will inherit, their future earning power, and the vital public and private investments that are key to building a future full of opportunity.

Tune into this podcast with Hilary Allen, Up to Us Spokesperson, to hear how she and the Up to Us program are educating and engaging college students on campuses across the US.

An important part of engagement is closing the loop of communication which speaks to the transparency and trust that it creates with your audience. With their Talking Power Newsletter integration, SA Power Networks is able to close the loop and inform the workshop participants and reference group members when post workshop reports have been added to the Talking Power platform.

"Looking after around 860,000 customers across the state, we needed a way to touch those people and connect with them, and this provided us with an opportunity to do so." - Jessica Vonthehoff, Manager Stakeholder Engagement & Communications, SA Power Networks

SA Power Networks set up a series of reference groups and specialist groups focused on different areas of planning. The creation of a private page for these groups, including unique logins, allowed them to engage more deeply and add value to their interactions. A few of these specialised groups included;

-Solar battery technology integrations

-Arborists managing vegetation around power lines

-Business group

How is Talking Power managing stakeholder expectations and response time in our "instant-gratification" focused world? How did the IAP2 Spectrum help them adapt and manage expectations around influence and engagement? How did they select the most effective tools for their project needs and time limitations?

Tune into this podcast to find out how Talking Power's audience feels about the engagement process, progress, and successes SA Power Networks have undertaken.