How does engagement and public participation function in your organisation?

This post is written by Katherine Cole, Director of Citizen Engagement at the Correctional Service of Canada.

• The problem: Engagement processes are often seen as something that has to be done, not something that is done that leads to change.
• Why it matters: The public being engaged should see the results of their engagement in the outcome. If not, it becomes an empty “tick box” exercise that the public sees and reacts to negatively or, over time, stops engaging altogether.
• The solution: Public servants should all be trained on how to engage with the public, whether they are programme managers or policy analysts. This should not be the sole expertise of communicators or engagement specialists.

On July 24, 2023, Apolitical published an article I wrote titled: Why stakeholder engagement matters in the public service, which focused on how government decision-making can be improved by involving those most affected by our decisions. Thank you to everyone who read it! In follow-up, I am sharing more practical insights to provide more food for thought.

As someone who has been both a policy analyst and a public participation (“P2”) practitioner, one of my pet peeves over the years is that P2 is often seen as a function of communications and public affairs. I work within the communications and public affairs sector and have the utmost respect for their work. In fact, I enjoy dabbling in it very much! I also have much respect for the P2 practitioners who work as specialist consultants. They play an important role in designing good processes and are often expert facilitators.

However, in my opinion, an engagement process is not something that should be led by communicators or engagement professionals. It must be led by those at the heart of the desired change, such as the development or revision to a programme, policy, legislative or regulatory framework.

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If you choose to rely on your communications or public affairs team to lead your engagement, or if you hire an external consultant, that is fine, but know that what happens with this process is, and always will be your responsibility! They may do the heavy lifting in terms of designing which engagement technique to use (e.g., a survey, focus group, open house) and when. They may also be seasoned facilitators who have experience and comfort managing an event and getting the most out of it. However, ultimately, as the “pen” on whatever change you’re engaging your public on, you must be the one who can translate their feedback into action.

In every engagement process, according to the standard set by the International Association of Public Participation (IAP2), there should always be a commitment statement about how the information will be used in decision-making that you share with the public you’re engaging. This should be clearly and concisely communicated to those being engaged. As the “owner” of the work you’re doing to change a policy, programme, etc., you must be the one who can translate that commitment statement into meaningful action.

"If you have been doing your engagement continuously and building that relationship, then you have already created a space where you can ask questions and see how they respond."

As a practitioner, it is also my opinion that once a decision has been made to engage the public, a feedback loop should be created as part of the commitment. This means constantly and consistently reporting back to those who participated/were engaged about what you heard and how it was used in the process. Sharing this back with the public creates a continuous cycle of engagement because now you are also able to keep your public informed about your initiative and the process you are following.

As the programme manager or policy analyst, for example, you would attend every engagement event and hold the pen on a summary report of what was heard. With that in hand, it is then your job to take the report and translate the input and advice into action. It is your job to share what you heard within your organisation so that others can be involved in translating it into action. It should not sit on a shelf and gather dust! If it does, you could find yourself in hot water. The Minister’s office could start calling, and you could be answering media requests, depending on how sensitive your work is. Personally, I do not enjoy being in the “dog house” like that; I would rather stay ahead of my problems, be proactive, and try to negotiate the best possible solution from common ground.

Many people do not understand that feedback loop and think of engagement as a sort of “one and done”. It is not a one-time, one-way ticket. Engagement and public participation is a process, and it is continuous. Good P2 is when you put yourself out there, gather information and perspectives, document it, and go back to say this is what we heard, and this is what we are going to do, taking into consideration what you told us (that’s actually the most important part). Some areas of your work or activities may be more exposed and open for collaborative input (and how much you will share power over what you are going to do). You can be transparent about this and define each activity along the engagement spectrum and what your commitment is. But, it should always result in a continuous and ongoing dialogue.

Is this starting to sound like you are building a “relationship”? Because that is precisely what you should be doing! Developing a continuous and ongoing dialogue can diffuse the adversarial, combative nature of your relationship and shift to one where you have some degree of trust and safety to talk and work together. You can even formalise the relationship through something like an advisory committee or circle or a working group, which can have an ongoing or time-limited mandate and a defined set of terms of engagement through a Terms of Reference or Memorandum of Understanding.

If you work within the Westminster Parliamentary system, as we do in Canada, you may find that “Cabinet confidence” puts a damper on what you can collaborate on and how much you can share with your public. As a policy analyst, I have certainly worked in that space and I admit that it is difficult to navigate. However, I have also worked toward policy co-development with Indigenous peoples and, in an effort to uphold the principles of the United Nations Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples, I can tell you that there are ways to manage that requirement for protecting Cabinet confidence and your sworn oath to secrecy while also advancing a collaborative P2 process.

When we say “Cabinet confidence”, it is about protecting the right of Cabinet to make decisions based on the options and recommendations provided by the public service. Those options, and the price tag attached to them, is what is protected, so that they can make a decision without the public knowing what they had to choose from and what decision they took. While this can be upheld, this doesn’t mean that you cannot ask questions of your stakeholders in a hypothetical sense when you are in the early stages of thinking out loud about options. They do not even have to know you’re working on anything formal like a Memorandum to Cabinet. If you have been doing your engagement continuously and building that relationship, then you have already created a space where you can ask questions and see how they respond. Their responses are what you can base your options on. You can even ask hypothetical questions like: “If the programme/policy was changed to do X, would that result in a better policy/programme?” or, if something completely new is being thought of, then put that on the table and ask: “Say in the future we did X, how would that affect you?”. That way, you can start to gauge how they would react to certain options if those decisions are taken. Usually, you have to provide that information anyway as background to decision-makers because they want to know what minefields they are potentially stepping into.

Your communications and public affairs colleagues are essential members of your P2 process. Keeping your public informed should be part of the planning and delivery of every P2 activity. Ultimately, your communications and public relations/affairs colleagues are not the experts in your programme or policy area. They do not know your stakeholders or clients as well as you do. They can give you advice about how to approach the engagement, what technique might work best, but it is not their responsibility to then translate what was heard into action.

If you are a public servant out there struggling with how to do “good P2”, I can say that there are thought leaders and change agents all around you. I learned from others more experienced and knowledgeable than I was about how to do this work well, responsibly and effectively. Watch and learn! Ask questions. As Oscar Wilde said: “Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery”. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel, and there is lots of training available and opportunities to join communities of practice to share and test ideas. Ultimately, this is about a mindset and what you can do to contribute to it.

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