Community Engagement Strategy 2021-2024
The Community Engagement Strategy 2021-24 outlines the methodology council will adopt when preparing to engage with the community and assist residents and other council stakeholders to understand how and when council will engage on issues that affect their future.
Councils in NSW are required to have a Community Engagement Strategy for how they will engage the community in creating and reviewing the Community Strategic Plan (CSP). The strategy must be based on social justice principles, identifying relevant stakeholder groups in the community, outline the methods that the council will use to engage each of these groups and allow sufficient time to effectively undertake the engagement.https://www.armidaleregional.nsw.gov.au/council/newsroom/council-publications
Even though it is a statutory requirement for a Community Engagement Strategy to be created when developing a council’s CSP this strategy seeks to broaden that scope to cover all of council’s engagement activities when developing and delivering projects and initiatives.
Community engagement is built on openness, transparency, trust and respect. Council recognises the right of the community to be informed and have input in decisions and values effective engagement in developing a positive relationship with its community. A positive relationship will lead to better decision making.
Council seeks to listen to the views, aspirations, issues and needs of the community and balance these with other influences, such as budgetary and legislative constraints to make informed decisions.
The Community Engagement Strategy will sit alongside a suite of engagement documents including the adopted Community Engagement Policy and a Community Engagement Guide and Toolkit currently in development.