Is Byron Council doing a good job of engaging with the community on the issues, policies and projects that matter to you?
Our elected councillors certainly think so.
We are awesome!
At last week’s Council meeting, they unanimously endorsed a glowing report on the functions and performance of the Community Engagement team, providing a healthy dusting of compliments along the way.
The report listed a series of impressive performance statistics achieved by the engagement team.
For example, during the course of last November, 47,000 people viewed Council’s social media posts, and Council’s website had 106,000 hits.
Council’s e-Newsletter went out to 12,000 people, and at least 45 per cent of people actually opened it. This is a far higher proportion than the industry average, which is between 17 and 28 per cent.
Council’s ‘Your Say’ page, one of its key engagement platforms, was also popular, receiving 2,820 views during the same month.
Less budget than other councils
All this was achieved, the report said, on a budget of $458,800 per annum, considerably less than Byron’s neighbouring councils.
However, while 71 per cent of respondents to Council’s latest community survey reportedly said they were ‘somewhat to very satisfied’ with Council’s overall community consultation and engagement, not everyone is happy with the job Council is doing when it comes to community consultation.
Council has been criticised for a lack of effective consultation in relation to a number of projects in recent times, including two plans to build affordable housing on government and Council-owned land in Mullumbimby.
Council’s consultations processes criticised
At other times Council’s consultations processes have been criticised for failing to engage the community when only a handful of local residents responded to new plans and strategies.
The head of Council’s engagement team, Annie Lewis, responded to some of these criticisms in her written report.
‘Judging the success of engagement campaigns just on the number of submissions received is a flawed approach, because the number of submissions received is often more of a reflection of the level of controversy of the item, than the reach or influence of the campaign,’ Ms Lewis said in the report.
‘People who are satisfied with a particular service/project often will not participate in community engagement or contact Council because they are happy.’
Criticism was not deserved
Ms Lewis also said that sometimes dissatisfaction with an outcome translated into stated dissatisfaction with the processes that delivered that outcome, including the engagement process, when in fact this criticism was not deserved.
During the meeting, Independent Councillor, Sama Balson, suggested adding a clause to the motion which would have required the engagement team to speak with local community organisations to discuss improving Council’s community engagement.
But Cr Balson abandoned this amendment, after Ms Lewis said she did not believe it was necessary.
‘I don’t think it’s broken,’ Ms Lewis said of Council’s current approach.
‘In terms of speaking to community groups, we do that all the time.’
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