Council committed to better engagement with ratepayers and residents
Published on 03 March 2021
Frankston City Council is committed to improving its community engagement, with an emphasis on hearing from a diverse mix of voices to ensure Council decisions are fair and informed.
Councillors voted at their 1 March meeting to adopt the new Community Engagement Policy to improve how Council includes the community in decision-making.
Mayor Kris Bolam said the Policy outlines Council’s commitment to how it will engage with the community on decisions that impact and affect them.
“The Policy outlines Council’s commitment to engaging and collaborating with our diverse local communities to understand and incorporate their views, experiences and expertise.
“It outlines the vision for a coordinated approach to Council’s engagement with the community. We acknowledge that good community engagement is a critical foundation of an active and involved community.
“It promotes an exchange of information and ideas between Council and the community on issues and decisions that the community are affected by and are interested in,” Mayor Bolam said.
Council Director Business Innovation and Culture, Shweta Babbar, added that the draft Policy had been placed on public exhibition for feedback and comment during January and February 2021.
“We’ve listened carefully to feedback and have amended the Policy to directly reflect the community’s submissions, including their aspirations, voices and needs for community engagement.
“Significantly, in response to community submissions we’ve included a sixth Engagement Principle – in addition to the five Principles set out in the new Local Government Act 2020,” Ms Babbar said.
Council’s Engagement Principles are designed to ensure that its community engagement activities will:
- Have a clearly defined purpose, objective and scope.
- Provide participants with access to information.
- Include diverse and representative participants.
- Support participants to meaningfully engage.
- Inform participants how the process will influence Council’s decision making.
- Inform participants how the process has influenced Council’s decision making.
Frankston City resident, Georgina, said the new Community Engagement Policy was an important step.
“Having been involved in a community organisation, providing feedback about the draft policy and the importance of Council actively engaging with the community to find mutually beneficial pathways for the future, was a valuable experience,” she said.
Council Manager Community Relations, Fiona McQueen, said the Policy describes the types and form of community engagement proposed as per the Local Government Act 2020 requirements.
“Deliberative engagement practices are particularly important in the new Act, and the new Policy confirms the requirement that deliberative engagement will be applied to the development of the community vision, Council plan, financial plan and asset plan,” Ms McQueen said.
Ms McQueen added that the policy states that engagement timelines and methods will be identified through the engagement planning process and will be tailored to the needs of the relevant community, project and legislation or other timeline and process.
“The engagement design will be driven based on the complexity of the project, which will be detailed in the project’s Community Engagement Plan,” she said.
Council Senior Coordinator Community Engagement and Participation, Heather Hutchinson, said Council will work on developing its Community Engagement Framework during March – June 2021.
“We will invite the community to participate in further engagement and deliberation activities to shape the future of our engagement,” she said.
Ms Hutchinson added: “Council is committed to genuinely listening, learning from and understanding community input and enabling this input to directly influence Council’s decisions and project outcomes.
“When the community are included in and influence decisions that affect them, Council’s decisions can be better understood, mutually beneficial, more innovative, sustainable and representative of the interests of the broader community.”
Ms Hutchinson thanked all those provided their input to the Community Engagement Policy.
Furthermore, Council meetings are now open to the public in line with COVID-safe practices and people can ask questions for public question time.
For more information, please subscribe for updates at engagement@frankston.vic.gov.au or visit frankston.vic.gov.au