2014-08-25 General Committee Agenda

GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA   25 AUGUST 2014




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GENERAL COMMITTEE MEETING AGENDA                                                         25 AUGUST 2014

      COUNCIL POLICY - COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT

      COUNCIL POLICY

      Noosa Council recognises that community engagement and participation processes are a vital part
      of democracy. Effective engagement is good business practice and critical to good government.
      For this reason Council is committed to engaging with the Noosa community.
      The benefits of effective engagement include:
      e   Council and community working together to address local issues_and together achieve better
          outcomes;
      e   an effective level of community ownership and acceptance of decisions affecting the local
          government;
    | e   an effective level of increased—community awareness of Council’s services, planning and
          program delivery;
    | e   an effective level ofiacreased awareness across Council of community views and the issues
          that should be considered as part of decision making;
    | e   an effective level of increased-awareness of the needs, priorities and diversity of the local
          community, which in turn ensures that Council's service provision and planning functions are
          aligned appropriately;
      e   the added value of tapping into and drawing upon community expertise, knowledge and
          experience to optimise Council decision-making;
      e   the potential for time, resource and cost savings fer-Gounci-Las a result of better alignment of
          community needs to services; and
      ea _positivelmpreved community perception of Council's decision-making processes—bythe
          Coe S

      PRINCIPLES

      Effective community engagement is built on trust, respect and goodwill. Council has a commitment
      to community engagement that is governed by a set of principles that underpin good engagement
      processes. The principles are described below:
      Integrity and transparency- Engagement involves trust and transparency.          The levels of
      community influence will be clearly communicated. Consultation and higher forms of engagement
      must be genuinely must be genuinely purposeful and not tokenistic. Council will carefully consider,
      and accurately portray, the community’s role in the decision making process and reflect back how
      the community has influenced decisions.
      Open and inclusive — Council encourages involvement from a wide cross section of the
      community using engagement processes that are accessible and inclusive;
      Mutual respect- Council’s goal is to ensure that all voices matter, all opinions are valued and
      considered. A recognition that both the community and the local government are responsible for
      outcomes.

      Timeliness- Council will engage with its community in ways that are timely, open to all, easily
      understood and not overly bureaucratic or resource intensive.
      Well Planned — Engagement requires informed judgement and planning in its approach and
      implementation in order to be effective, practical and suitably resourced. Consideration will be
      given to ensuring that sufficient timeframes and adequate resources are allocated to engagement
      processes; community engagement processes are co-ordinated where possible to optimise
      resources, ensure efficiency and avoid duplication; the skill required to undertake community
    | engagement is recognised and staff will be provided with opportunities for appropriatefurher skill
      development and training.

      Noosa Council                                                                        Page 2 of 5

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