A catch-all, feel-good phrase or an agent of democracy?
It’s no surprise that community engagement in Australia today is at an impasse.
Despite decades-long professionalisation and its embeddedness in key functions of government, there is still no consensus on its definition or where it fits within organisations.
Under theorised and under-researched, with no formal vocational path, it’s possible to say that the community engagement space is bereft of rigour. (Despite the increased professionalisation of public participation in the 1990s, and placing citizens at the centre of policymaking considerations, community engagement has no formal degree, vocational pathway or theoretical background to fall back on.)
On the one hand, it is utilised as a ‘spray-on solution’ by government and private organisations.
On the other hand, it has moved into a place of prominence in the public-administration imagination through its increasing legislation as, over the past two decades, incremental reforms and legislation have informed engagement practice across state governments in Australia.
Coincidentally, this finds Australian engagement practice relatively well evolved in comparison to other countries across the developed world.
Yet, for practitioners, the ‘good’ of engagement presents a challenge to its evolution — especially in the increasingly complex policy environs as outlined in the new ebook, The Future Skills for Engagement Practitioners.
Researched and written for the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Australasia, Future Skills arrives at its findings through a series of in-depth interviews with key actors in engagement in Australia today — from engagement scholars to consultants working across public and private sectors. The at-length interviews and qualitative research provide insights otherwise obscured by blanket questions around policy and/or individual project outcomes.
Surprisingly, its findings include the often-assumed democratic ‘good’ of community engagement holds back its innovation — something the industry struggles with. As one interviewee put it “If you put the word ‘community’ in front of it, no one’s going to argue against it.”
But this blanket assumption comes with a risk that the practice won’t — or can’t — improve.
The ‘good’ of engagement and its ubiquitous application across private and public sectors leaves it open to misapplication, miscomprehension and misuse. The flip side of its celebrated position as an agent of democracy is the absence of a greater understanding of just what community engagement is.
This definitional vacuum is also open to misapprehension where ambiguity contributes to its contestation. Particularly where narrowing down definition relies on levels of community involvement, something public participation models have been grappling with since their inception in 1969. (In this way, in 2007, IAP2 outlined five incremental phases of public impact: inform, consult, involve, collaborate and empower. Known as the IAP2 spectrum, it’s widely utilised by governments across Australia.)
State vs local: the challenge of deliberation
In March 2020, the State Government of Victoria passed a new Local Government Act (LG Act) requiring councils to implement deliberative engagement practices for major strategic planning. The four-year review to reform the Act ensures “the aim of ensuring all Victorians have the opportunity to engage with council on local priorities and the future of their community.” However, in Australia, as Emanuela Savini and Bligh Grant suggest, “deliberative practice has been implemented on an ad hoc basis.”
Indeed, the push towards deliberative engagement speaks to governments committing to engaging in a deeper dialogue with communities – communities that are increasingly demanding it. It also points towards a more empowered role for communities in public decision-making.
And yet, the ebook research found that placing reliance on a methodology like deliberation without first substantiating it has contributed to major challenges for the industry.
Firstly, it amplifies an already noticeable gap in practitioner experience – a major challenge that confronts the industry. This has, in part, been produced through where practitioners gain experience. (Since the emergence of COVID-19, for instance, infrastructure has been key to economic restimulation and provides the bulk of engagement work).
Legislating deliberative engagement deepens this chasm. Especially given the many years of experience required to grasp the methodology of deliberation and the broader concept of community engagement.
Secondly, it raises the question of whether legislative reforms are driving practice through a narrow schema. Perhaps unwittingly, are they also imposing an uneven responsibility on practitioners and between local governments — particularly where resources are concerned?
For emerging practitioners, implementing deliberative engagement is a reach beyond their experience. For some councils, resources alone inhibit the implementation of true deliberative methodologies.
The government’s introduction of deliberative engagement as a method, without clarification of it, then runs the risk of creating a disconnect between practice and methodology.
As one interviewee puts it: “One of the biggest challenges is the models that have become popular now and whether they’re being applied in a way that they were initially designed to be used. Or whether people are just picking up these labels and using them around their practice, which has an impact on the way they’re perceived into the future.”
Microcosm of broader issues
Hanging practice on the idea of deliberative engagement without comprehension of the methodology mirrors the notion that anything — and everything — can be “community engagement”.
This perpetuates the intrinsic dilemma, just what is community engagement? Where the LG Act ensures practitioners “have a go” at deliberation, it effectively writes a knowledge and experience gap into legislation. With no clear idea of what is expected, research into best practice is found wanting.
Deliberation, then, becomes a microcosm of the broader problems of the lack of definition for engagement. Uneven in its implementation and hard to understand, the lack of definition perpetuates a difficult situation for the practitioner.
There are, then, some tough decisions that need to be made. Not only to define what community engagement is but to also define what it isn’t. The lack of definition also has an internal impact on engagement culture, where disagreement exists within the very function and mechanisms of engagement itself.
One interviewee noted the disagreement around facilitation where it determines engagement practice is distinguished from evaluation and design work, resulting in contestations around “where the core knowledge is and where the overlapping knowledge is.”
Culturally diverse engagement no longer an ‘add on’
The ebook presents eight key recommendations, many of which revolve around education to increase legitimisation of the field and its professionalisation. Something in which, it is suggested, government needs to take a lead.
Other recommendations include the more controversial idea of unlocking stories of failed engagement as a way to orient skills for future engagement practitioners and the practice.
However, equity in public decision-making and processes of inclusion have become increasingly paramount. A salient case in point is marked by the then-incoming prime minister’s acceptance speech, the first election victory speech to place Indigenous Peoples as central to incoming government’s policies.
Anthony Albanese’s acknowledgement marks a turning point not only in Australian political history but in the tangible impact on future skills required for engagement practitioners.
Without question, in Australia, contemporary engagement practice is well evolved: a component of local democracy, it is now embedded in key functions of local governments and procedures of public administration and management practice.
But the increased visibility and legislative prominence raises questions about the quality of practice and democratic drivers of equity and inclusivity. Does the promise of engagement hold more authenticity than its practice? How do practitioners respond to increasing uncertainty, rapid change and endemic mistrust of governments?
Public engagement is one of the ways governments use to identify policy priorities in Indigenous contexts. But where outcomes are at odds with the kind of changes desired by Indigenous communities, it has become a repetitive cycle.
The challenge is how engagement processes ensure the inclusion of the diversity of Indigenous communities to counter their marginalisation. The design of culturally respectful and appropriate community engagement methodologies should recognise that not one size fits all. In an Indigenous engagement context, where there are layers of complexity, for instance, the need to advocate for sufficient time to implement a methodology is crucial.
Designing an engagement approach that makes space for cultural equity involves thinking of partnerships and governance models that embed First Peoples in co-designing program outcomes and reciprocity in terms of value exchange.
The harmonisation of engagement practice across the sector may face some criticism. In particular, in the ability to deliver democracy where both organisations, public institutions and the community are not equally content.
In advancing equity in engagement, too, we need to know how to deal with the increasing uncertainties demonstrated in our current pernicious environment.
Either we reinforce mistrust and scepticism that characterises the current democratic malaise, or we create opportunities where we can meet prevailing challenges, learn new skills and develop new ways of being. Underscoring the future skills for engagement practitioners, then, is the commitment to improve practice.
Future Skills for Engagement Practitioners is freely available to download at IAP2 Australasia here.
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