Community engagement is a priority and vital in meeting the Plan for Fife outcomes. We've created this easy-to-use toolkit to support services and organisations.
What the toolkit sets out to achieve
This toolkit gives you the tools and information you need to run good community engagement. It will help you embed this way of working into your work going forward.
What people can use it for
This toolkit can be used in the planning, delivery and evaluation of your work. We recommend checking the three steps outlined below anytime your service is undertaking decisions that affect the community you serve. If you have any questions, please don't hesitate to get in touch.
Think about who you might need to help you and what else might be already going on in your area. If you’re not sure where to start, please do get in touch.
3 steps to effective community engagement
- Planning
- Delivery
- Evaluation
1. Planning your engagement
There are nine key stages to consider when planning an engagement or consultation.
Find out more about:
This stage of planning is where you establish how and where the decisions from the engagement will be made and how you will feed this back to participants. Managing expectations throughout is a vital part of good community engagement.
Action:
- Ask yourself: What am I doing, why am I doing it and how will the information be used?
What are you asking people about?
This is where you need to consider setting realistic expectations for participants. What are the limitations of the consultation? Working out the level of participation required at this stage will help to inform the rest of the process.
Action:
- Check the consultation diary to see if something similar has already been done. Could they help you?
A good purpose will be highly focused with clear outputs, and outcomes which are easy for all to understand. A bad purpose will be poorly defined, with unclear outcomes and open to many different interpretations. A measure of a good purpose is its ability to create a commonly shared understanding of the potential impact of the project.
Examples of purposes for community engagement include:
- Inform
- Consult
- Engage
- Collaborate
- Empower
Action:
- Make sure the people you're trying to reach know about the engagement.
Online is always a quick and convenient place to hold an engagement but is there a better way to communicate with your audience?
Think carefully about your scope and purpose and how to reach as many people affected as possible. The equalities framework and list of protected characteristics can help you consider people who may not normally take part.
Ask yourself, who can help achieve the best results and when:
- Who is directly responsible for the decisions on the issues?
- Who is influential in the area, community and/ or organisation?
- Who will be affected by any decisions on the issue (individuals and organisations)?
- Who runs organisations with relevant interests?
- Who is influential on this issue?
- Who can obstruct a decision if not involved?
- Who has been involved in this issue in the past?
- Who has not been involved, but should have been?
Think about your sample and its size. Make sure that you're only asking for information you need.
It is important to distinguish between the outputs and outcomes of a process. We define outputs as the tangible products of a process, such as reports, meetings and leaflets, which are useful in themselves but do not usually meet the full purpose of the process.
Examples of outputs include:
- Information (e.g. new information created as an input to a workshop and/or information from meetings)
- Leaflets
- Meetings or workshops held with different groups
- Posters
- Exhibitions/presentations
- Surgeries (i.e. one-to-one discussions to share problems, get advice etc)
- Reports
- New research findings
Action:
- Make sure you're noticed for the right reasons!
Outputs need to be accessible and easy to understand for your target audience. Avoid complex jargon, specialist language and long questions.
Outcomes are the fundamental differences that a process makes, its overall results and impacts. Outcomes are more specific than ‘purpose’ and are a clear statement of exactly what is sought from the process.
Possible outcomes include:
- Improved personal and/or working relationships
- A wider circle of responsibility for decisions and actions
- Agreement on the purpose and direction of a project, programme, or new policy
- Identification of issues, benefits and drawbacks
- Generation of new ideas
- New formal partnerships
- Defusing conflict to enable progress to be made
- Creation/enhancement of social capital
- Improved services for people
- Policy change
- Cost savings
- Capacity building and learning (individual and organisational)Building overt support for a new idea or initiative
- Behaviour change.
Different methods are designed to produce different types of outcomes. Being clear on your desired outcomes helps to identify which method is most appropriate. This is therefore a crucial part of the planning process.
Action:
Identify and agree the desired outcomes:
- Choose the right methods to get the outcomes wanted
- Ensure that overall objectives are not lost sight of as the process goes on
- Deal with the likely short-term impacts and results so that you are best placed to get what is wanted in the long term.
Action:
Understand the wider context to ensure that it:
- Links with other relevant activities going on at the same time
- Is responsive to participant needs/sensitivities by appreciating their wider role
- Builds on previous experience and learns lessons from the past
- Does not duplicate other activities
- Progresses quickly and is relevant.
Action:
Ensure that you have everything in place including:
- Timeline for the engagement
- How the outputs and results from the engagement will be fed back to participants.
Action:
Build in the opportunity to review how the process has gone and where improvements could have been made.
Levels of engagement/involvement
| Purpose | Expectation | Examples of Methods | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Inform | To provide the public with information to assist their understanding of an issue | We will keep you informed |
|
| Consult | To collect information from the public about attitudes and opinions. | We will keep you informed, listen to and provide feedback on how public input has informed the decision. |
|
| Involve | To work with the public throughout all stages of the process to ensure their concerns are understood and considered. | We will work with you to ensure your concerns and aspirations shape the process and influence the decision. |
|
| Collaborate | To partner with the public in each aspect of the decision, agree sharing of resources and decision making. | We will look to you for advice and help in developing solutions and incorporating your advice. |
|
| Empower | To place final decision-making in the hands of the public | We will implement what you decide. |
|
Community engagement methods
In the section below we've provided several useful links to external sites which we will check on as we can. However please note that we're unable to ensure that they will be always live and up to date. If you encounter any dead links or issues, please email: CommunityEngagement@fife.gov.uk
A website that has a useful directory of methods can be found at: involve | people at the heart of decision-making | involve.org.uk
Engagement tools
These are tools that provide information that flows in one direction. They TELL people about things that are happening.
Back To TopThese tools are asking for information from people. A specific characteristic of these is that they have distinctive and clear parameters on what is being ASKED.
Back To TopUsing these tools allows of participants to be ENGAGED in the whole process. They are tools that work with communities and allow them to shape the whole process.
- Planning for Real
- Community fairs/events Planning an event | Fife Council
- Place standard approach
- World cafes
- Appreciative enquiry
- Citizen’s juries
Step 2: Delivery
During the delivery phase, it's important that you continue to communicate clearly and regularly with the people, organisations and communities affected by the engagement.
There are certain steps you must ensure you complete.
Communication
Get the information about your engagement out to the people you are trying to engage with.
Giving particular consideration to those who would not normally take part. You can use the Equalities framework to help with this and think about the protected characteristics. Online is a great and convenient place to hold engagement but think about how to use other methods to let people know that they have an opportunity to get involved.
The consultation or survey needs to be accessible and easy to understand for the target audience. Avoid complex jargon, specialist language and long questions and be noticed for the right reasons!
Guidelines
As you go, you should ensure that all the outputs you’ve planned align with any branding requirements from your organisation or funder. Take note of where you should be sharing details and/or logos of your funders. If in doubt, have the conversation and make sure everyone is on the same page.
Step 3: Evaluation
There's no such thing as a perfect engagement. The best way to gauge whether or not your consultation has been successful is to ask the community.
Remember to feedback
There will never be a more accurate measure to your success than the relationship that you have at the end of the day with the community. Remember to feedback on a regular basis and share results with participants.
Review
Take time to reflect on your engagement - what worked well, what could have been done better. Learn and grow from successes and mistakes.
We’d love to hear from you and learn from what you’ve been doing in your local community. If you have a case study written up or a report you’d like to share, we’d love to see it. Perhaps there’s an opportunity for us to share your story on our communications channels.