How can Authorities lay the foundations for meaningful public participation?

Turning high-level ambition for public participation into meaningful engagement processes on the ground can be challenging and requires a strategy for public participation to be put in place in an Authority. Without a strategy, ad-hoc engagement and one-way consultation processes can lead to an erosion of trust and confidence, and a failure to ensure the best outcomes for local people and places.

Drawing on experience from year-long placements (April 2019 - 2020) Umi Baden-Powell and Olivia Halper produced this Practice Note (published August 2020) to consider actions that officers can take to develop and deliver an effective strategy for public participation which embeds dialogue and collaboration from the outset.

The note provides three key recommendations:

• Identify and allocate roles
• Take stock of opportunities and constraints
• Initiate dialogue and collaboration
• Assemble a toolkit

To support these recommendations, a package of workshop templates for local authority officers to use can be found here.

Download the Practice Note in full below.