2022 Award "Best Practice in Citizen Participation"
16th Edition
In late 2020, the City of Mitcham Council resolved to engage democracyCo, as specialists in deliberative democracy, to design and deliver a process which would see a community panel work to provide recommendations to Council on the way forward – considering the various views and divergent needs, and current feeling in the community.
The primary purpose of the community panel was to clarify issues, dispel misinformation and discuss a range of ideas for the future of Hawthorndene Oval.
The objective of the deliberative engagement for the Hawthorndene Oval was to ensure direct involvement of local residents and stakeholders regarding the review of a Community Land Management Plan and future use of the Oval.
The Hawthorndene Oval Community Panel was tasked to provide input through a deliberative approach with the aim to optimise diversity, reach and inclusion.
Through a deeper understanding of the issues, views, needs and wants of the broad Hawthorndene Oval community, City of Mitcham sought to deliver sustainable long-term outcomes for people, families and groups that utilise the Oval.
The process included:
- Community Open survey – to allow everyone to have their say
- Random invitation to community to join the Panel
- Recruitment of Panel (random stratified sampling) of 30 people comprising:
- 80% members of the community
- 10% cricket club & association members
- 10% local stakeholders (environmental & business)
- 4 day deliberative process across 2 concurrent weekends
- Handover of recommendations to Council.
Following the work of the Panel, the outcomes were presented to Council for their deliberations and on 11 May 2021, Council supported the panel’s recommendations. This process highlighted to Council an innovative way that Council can engage with its community to assist with decision making. The panel were also grateful for the opportunity, with many stating they would welcome the opportunity to be involved in this type of engagement again.
Ensuring diversity & inclusion
The panel involved 20% stakeholders who were recruited through personal invitation. The remainder were a diverse sample of the Mitcham Hills in gender, age, and location.
democracyCo used Mitcham Council’s email distribution list for Hills residents (comprising approximately 3000 emails) to select 1000 residents to invite via email. In addition, to ensure we have strong representation from residents who live approximate to Hawthorndene Oval, democracyCo ‘letter dropped’ 100 invitations in the letter boxes of randomly selected residents within 500 meters of the oval.
The City of Mitcham was not involved in recruitment in any way - to ensure integrity of process.
As previously stated, the City of Mitcham as a result of this consultation have embarked on a broader and deeper process of engagement with the local Indigenous community and embedded this process of Cultural Heritage surveys, site visits and face to face meeting with Kaurna representatives into other engagement activities across the city.
Innovation
The process in of itself was an Innovation for the City of Mitcham – having never used a deliberative approach in this way. Given the issue was dividing the community into two polarised groups, democracyCo advised that both those views & people be involved as full members in the panel – in equal and balanced numbers. This was to ensure that these groups participated actively in the process and contributed to the deliberative experience and development of ideas. Importantly, the majority of participants (80%) were community members (aka bridge builders).
Overall the community engagement process resulted in a deeper connection between local government and community and a realisation by council that connecting with community early in the planning process was critical to ensure greater trust and transparency and also ensuring a better balance in terms of planning and design of community and sporting facilities. The cricket club, having participated in the panel/ community working group were willing to compromise on a range of their initial proposals including withdrawing the proposal for cricket nets, a liquor licence and reducing the hours of use they were seeking to allow local residents more time for community recreation / informal use of Hawthorndene Oval.
The commitment of local community into the community panel/working group in terms of their time (over 2 weekends/ 2 full days and 2 evenings) cannot be underestimated. It is this energy and commitment from a diverse group of community who ultimately led to the successful outcomes.
https://yoursay.mitchamcouncil.sa.gov.au/hawthorndene-oval
This proposal has been accepted because:
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