Engagementworks
Phone: +64 22 198 5043
  • Home
  • About Us
  • Our Services
    • Audit & Review Services
    • Community engagement checklist
    • Significance & Engagement Resource Kit
    • Resources and Links
  • Buy Community Engagement Basics Online
  • Community Engagement Basics Online
    • Introduction
    • Session 1
    • Session 2
    • Session 3
    • Session 4
    • Session 5
    • Session 6
    • Session 7
    • Session 8
    • Session 9
    • Bonuses
  • Our Training >
    • Short Courses >
      • Governance & leadership (LS-010)
      • Engagement overview (LS-020)
      • Social media for leaders (LS-030)
      • Preparing an engagement strategy (PS-010)
      • Preparing an engagement plan (PS-020)
      • How to use the engagement toolbox (PS-030)
      • How to use engagement planning templates (PS-040)
      • Understanding & planning internal engagement (PS-050)
      • Understanding & using online engagement tools & social media (PS-060)
      • Engagement tips & tricks (PS-070)
      • Engagement case studies (PS-080)
      • Dealing with engagement conflict (PS-090)
    • Practitioner Workshop Series >
      • Community Engagement 101
      • Community Engagement Basics (Local Government)
    • Governance Workshop
    • Training Photo Gallery
  • Our Free Stuff
  • Our Blog
  • Case Studies >
    • Invercargill City's Caravan
    • Sport Bay of Plenty's GO4it Programme
    • Wellington region local government reform
    • Newcastle's fig trees
    • Sport Waitakere's 8M8s
  • Our Newsletters
  • Contact Us

Get ready for significance AND engagement

17/12/2013

0 Comments

 
Picture
A major piece of legislation that shapes the roles and functions of local government councils and agencies in New Zealand is the Local Government Act 2002. A bill to amend this Act is currently passing through Parliament and is expected to be passed into law by the end of the first quarter of 2014.

Included in the proposed amendments are changes to Part 6 of the Act, notably a requirement for councils to have a significance AND engagement policy, rather than just the significance policy that the current Act requires. Changes are also proposed to the Act’s special consultative procedure provisions.

These changes will require a different approach to how councils engage with their communities – changes that should be welcomed by communities who want to be more involved in council decision-making processes and for there to be greater transparency for council decision-making generally.

Councils will also need to think hard about how they assess “significance”, as required by the Act and how they apply that policy. A particular issue is how councils determine whether an issue is of “high” significance or not and will need to focus on impact on communities, rather than just on economic impact which appears to be the prevailing basis for council decisions.

Environmental, social and cultural well-beings must also form part of a significance determination which should not be overshadowed by financial considerations. The Office of the Auditor General has been concerned about councils’ approach to determining significance for some years and how consistently significance policies have been applied.

Engagement is often something councils do because they have to, not because they want to. Changes to the Act regarding engagement require councils to work more closely with their communities. We think this is a good thing, not only for New Zealand’s communities but also for councils themselves. More effective and ongoing engagement will greatly increase a council’s understanding of a community’s issues, needs and priorities. It will also grow a council’s trust and respect and other elements that comprise its “social capital”.

Yes, more engagement will probably increase the level of investment a council has to make to ensure it is done well. But that investment will pay back strongly in other areas, such as a reduction in challenges to council decisions, particularly legal challenges, and a greater ability for council projects to be delivered to time and within budget.

Engagementworks understands what the changes to Part 6 of the Local Government Act mean for councils and local government agencies. To help councils and avoid the inevitable “reinventing of the wheel” that often occurs with change processes, we have built a resource kit to make it easy for councils to meet the new statutory requirements. The kit includes process flowcharts and templates for building a significance and engagement policy through to how to apply that policy on a day-to-day basis.

We’ve also built a training workshop to help guide councils through the changes a revised Act will require for engagement practice.

Our resources have been peer reviewed and are available now, based on the current Bill, assuming it will pass through Parliament unchanged. However should changes occur, then the resource will be updated to incorporate these amendments, at no cost.

The resource kit can be obtained by contacting us at admin@engagementworks.co.nz or by clicking this link.

It will be available as a printed copy and also on CD. It will also be available on memory stick or in Dropbox™ where it will be maintained on an ongoing basis – the latest version will always be the one available. Subscribers who do not have Dropbox™ will be sent notices of updates as these occur.

In addition to supplying the resource kit, Engagementworks also offers a one-day “how to” workshop to help councils understand and implement the new statutory requirements relating to significance and engagement. The one-day workshop can be adapted to suit specific council requirements.

Pricing:
  • The kit on its own is available for purchase for $620 plus GST.
  • The one-day, in-house “how to” workshop, including the resource kit, is priced at $7,500 plus GST for up to 20 people.

0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Authors

    Brett & Don share their thoughts. Engagement isn't always the only thing that excites them!

    Archives

    December 2015
    November 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    May 2015
    March 2015
    January 2015
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    April 2014
    February 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013

    Categories

    All
    Advice
    Ideas
    Opinion
    Tools

    RSS Feed

Picture
Engagementworks
© 2023