In 2017-18 the ACT Government committed to strengthening its approach to community engagement to hear from more Canberrans, to provide clear information and easy opportunities for the community to have their say on the issues that matter.
The purpose of the reform is to build a better, more trusted relationship between government and community. Encouraging greater participation from across our diverse community will help develop and deliver policies and programs that meet the needs and expectations of our community.
To increase the transparency of the upcoming engagements and community information campaigns a Whole of Government Communications and Engagement Strategy was prepared and publicly released in February 2018. This document clearly forecasts government’s priority conversations with Canberrans.
The government has also committed to creating an online insight community to ensure everyone’s views are heard. This new capability, which over time will give a broadly representative group of Canberrans the opportunity to have their say on a range of issues, began development in 2017-18 and is due to begin roll out before the end of 2018.
The government is committed to improving how we listen to the Canberra community and reflect the feedback we have received. To that end we have begun releasing reports on ‘What We Heard’ following a community engagement activity. These reports are posted on YourSay. They are quickly becoming one of the regular ways we ‘close the loop’ with Canberrans.
The government has also committed to trialling new approaches to engagement and during 2017-18 delivered four deliberative engagement processes. These were a Carers’ Strategy, citizens’ jury considering improvements to the Compulsory Third Party Insurance scheme, a citizens’ panel on the housing needs of the future (Housing Choices Collaboration Hub) and a citizens’ forum to inform the prioritisation of city services (Better Suburbs Citizens’ Forum).
In this section of the Annual Report you will also see the diverse range of topics the government engages with Canberrans on and the variety of ways it seeks your input into government decisionmaking. This includes using live-streaming, walkshops, townhall meetings, surveys, family events and quizzes to make it easy and enjoyable to have YourSay. In our newest suburbs the Mingle Community
Development program directly engages residents in how their new communities develop. The government continues to support Community Councils with annual funding and continues to work productively with the councils.
The ACT Government’s online engagement website continues to see increased activity. The website enables Canberrans to have their say on issues that matter to them at a time and in a way that suits them. We continue to make improvements to the website to make engaging with the government an informative and easy experience.
The top five projects with the most unique pageviews on YourSay were the YourPlates review (Justice and Community Safety), New Bus Network, (Transport Canberra and City Services) with more than followed by Housing Choices, the Zero Emissions Climate Strategy and the Citizens’ Jury on Compulsory Third Party Insurance (Chief Minister Treasury and Economic Development). The government has also seen an increase in the numbers of visitors returning to the site to view updates or give feedback.
In February 2018, a regular YourSay e-newsletter was introduced to better inform subscribers about upcoming opportunities to have their say as well as provide updates on projects that have been influenced by community feedback and input. The subscriber base grew to more than 5,000 in February to June 2018.
During 2017-18 the ACT Government undertook a range of significant community engagement activities on projects detailed below by directorate.