Community engagement in Australian local governments: a closer look and strategic implications

ABSTRACT

Public input into decision-making through participatory and deliberative democratic practices has become a widely accepted and legislated responsibility of Australian local governments. At any one time, councils are leading submission processes, workshops and online surveys on a multitude of projects, ranging from long-term community strategic plans to public art projects. The increase in these practices has been exponential, leaving little time for critical reflection. The lack of empirical data to illustrate how community engagement is understood and practised in different councils has hindered sector-wide reflection. This paper presents the findings of the ‘Local Government Community Engagement Census’, a survey of 175 councils – approximately half – from 4 of Australia’s eastern states. This sectoral snapshot provides a picture of how councils understand, prioritise and practise community engagement, allowing critical reflection, an interpretation of implications and suggesting areas for future research.

KEYWORDS:

• Community engagement
• local government
• public administration
• public participation

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

1. Adjustments to the ACLG are as follows: (1). Only local governments under the jurisdiction of the states’ Local Government Acts have been included. This criterion excludes seven local governments in South Australia and three in New South Wales. (2). Since the publishing of the Local Government National Report 2014–2015 (Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (DIRD) (Australian Government) 2017), NSW has undertaken a merger programme and consequently the number of councils has decreased from 155 to 132. The table has been amended to incorporate these changes using the ALGC classification system provided by Department of Infrastructure and Regional Development (DIRD) (Australian Government) (2017:218). (3). Five councils in Queensland – Gold Coast City Council, Ipswich City Council, Logan City Council, Moreton Bay Regional Council and Redland City Council – have been reclassified from Urban Regional to Urban Development. This is to more accurately reflect their status as metropolitan areas rather than regional towns. These local government areas are part of the metropolitan rail network as is typically the case with other Urban Development classifications.

2. As the data are normally distributed, parametric methods can be applied; however, verification with non-parametric methods has also been conducted to improve the robustness of results obtained.

3. Note: the chi-squared test cannot be used in this instance as the expected frequencies assumption is violated.

4. The Holm-Bonferroni Sequential Correction has been used in both cases to correct for familywise error rates.

5. While many of the duplicate responses were similar, there was one extreme example where, for one metropolitan council Respondent A reported 12 processes in the previous year, all designed and planned by council staff, and the key barrier was the ineffectiveness of the community engagement staff. Responded B reported 48 processes in the previous year, with two-thirds designed and planned by council staff, and the key barrier was the lack of staff resources to stretch across the organisation.

6. At the 1% and 5% significance levels, respectively.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Helen E. Christensen

Helen E. Christensen is a PhD candidate and an associate at the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia. Her research focuses on examining the practice and professionalisation of community engagement and public participation in Australian local government.

Dana McQuestin

Dana McQuestin is a doctoral student in the Institute for Public Policy and Governance at the University of Technology Sydney, Australia, and a master’s student (MEc) in the Graduate School of Management at Tokyo Metropolitan University. Her research deals with local government financial sustainability and performance measurement.