Effective Community Engagement: Collaborating with the community for enhanced policy, programs, projects and service.

21st and 22nd of July 2010, Rydges World Square Sydney

Across all levels of government there is an increasing desire to generate better outcomes for the community in the areas of policy development, planning and service delivery. Today, engaging with the community is a recognised key driver to delivering these outcomes.

‘An objective of the Australian Government's e-government policy is to enhance closer citizen engagement. Through the use of new technologies, agencies are engaging more widely with the public through online policy information, feedback and consultation. Online consultation provides opportunities to enhance and complement traditional consultation mechanisms and generate better policy outcomes.’ AGIMO, Better Practice Checklist

The requirement to listen to the voices of those affected by the policies being shaped is seen as central to the delivery of modernisation and improvement programs sought by government.

In Australia, the recommendations of the Government 2.0 Taskforce, and the Government’s qualified approval for the majority of them, have heralded a new era of openness, transparency and collaboration.

At the forthcoming Effective Community Engagement conference, Objective’s public sector solutions manager David Eade will present three case studies from Objective customers around the world. Case studies that highlight:

• Lessons learnt from large scale stakeholder engagement
• The importance of managing the diversity of, and relationship with, a wide range of stakeholders across multiple consultations
• Tools that enable outcome-centric consultations delivering political, social and financial benefits 

David Eade says: “These case studies represent real issues and challenges faced by those who engage with a wide range of stakeholders, from peer agencies through to environmental groups, corporations and the general public.” 

“They demonstrate practical ways that engagement practitioners are using technology to make their lives easier and provide better outcomes for their communities.”

Objective is an established leader and specialist provider of proven content, collaboration and process management solutions for the public sector. Objective’s uEngage addresses the needs of organisations to undertake effective and efficient community consultations while providing consultee and engagement management. 

uEngage provides centralised management of the entire consultation lifecycle process, enabling organisations to consult all relevant stakeholders, citizens, employees or partners through the widest variety of response mechanisms, from electronic documents, meetings and surveys to polls, message boards and forums.