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Accessibility information

This is the engagement page for the Draft Community Engagement Policy

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Knox City Council is committed to effective, fit for purpose and open community engagement and our Community Engagement Policy defines our approach and provides principles of good engagement practice. Over the past 4 years we’ve consulted the community on over 100 projects.

Across November 2023 the community provided feedback on their experiences and expectations when participating in Council consultation activities to ensure the Policy continues to reflect the community’s expectations. Consultation closed on 23 November 2023.

With the feedback from this first engagement, Council developed a Draft Community Engagement Policy. The policy went out for public exhibition and the consultation on the draft closed on 20 May 2024.

The policy was adopted at a Council meeting in August 2024. View the final Community Engagement Policy on the Knox website.

What we heard

We heard that its important to you that we:

  • Make sure people who might be impacted are aware
  • Provide information that is easy to understand
  • Have different ways for people to get involved and provide feedback
  • Be clear about how the community can influence the decision
  • Be consistent in our processes

Important changes

The new policy makes it clear when we engage and what we engage on.

We will undertake community engagement when:

  • The community can influence the outcome
  • A policy, project or decision is likely to impact the community - the impacts may be economic, social, environmental, built form or governance related
  • When we need information from the community to help make a decision or progress a project.

Our decisions will also be informed by other information, including:

  • Population, demographics and service usage data
  • Technical
  • Financial
  • Research and previous community engagement data
  • Legal, government and regulatory requirements

Meaningful: We provide our community with genuine opportunities to participate in decisions that affect them.

Transparent: We will explain the level of influence the community can have on the outcome and detail what the community can and can’t influence and why. We will describe how the decision will be made and by who and share the outcomes of engagement processes with our community.

Respectful: We acknowledge and value the expertise, perspective and needs of the community and communicate with them at key milestones.

Inclusive: We consider our diverse community members when designing our communications and engagement activities. We provide information in easy-to-understand and accessible formats and provide support to those who need assistance to take part in our activities.

Informed: We provide relevant and easy-to-understand information to support engagement and time to review the information.

Community engagement is a formal process to gather information from the community to inform a decision.

It involves developing a plan that outlines:

  • interested and impacted people
  • how much influence they can realistically have on the outcome
  • activities to gather that information from people
  • a plan for communicating the outcome

After the Community Engagement Policy is endorsed we will develop some guidelines for our staff on developing and implementing good engagement plans.

Timeline

  • Timeline item 1 - complete

    Broad community engagement including focus groups and discussion with advisory committees

    November 2023

  • Timeline item 2 - complete

    Draft Council Plan developed

    December 2023 - April 2024

  • Timeline item 3 - complete

    Public exhibition of draft policy and further engagement with advisory committees

    April - May 2024

  • Timeline item 4 - complete

    Policy finalised for presentation to Council

    June 2024

  • Timeline item 5 - complete

    Community Engagement Policy adopted

    August 2024

Engagement Level

For this project we will be engaging our community at the level of Involve on the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2) Spectrum.
This means we will work with you to ensure that your concerns and aspirations are directly reflected in the alternatives developed and provide feedback on how public input influenced the decision.

Contact us

Find out more about the Council Plan and this engagement.

Contact Information
Name Community Engagement Team
Phone 03 9298 8000
Email haveyoursay@knox.vic.gov.au