How and why deliberative democracy enables co-intelligence and brings wisdom to governance

Over the past decade, state and local governments throughout Australia have focused on how to improve community consultation. Government consultation processes, regulated with the best of intentions to involve the public, have come under heavy criticism as being DEAD (Decide, Educate, Announce and Defend). It has become apparent that the problem community consultation was supposed to fix – including the voice of the community in developing policy and plans – has remained problematic. Worse, the fix has often backfired. Rather than achieving community engagement, consultation has frequently resulted in the unintended consequence of community frustration and anger at tokenism and increased citizen disaffection. Traditional community consultation has become a “fix that failed”, resulting in a “vicious cycle” of ever-decreasing social capital1 (Hartz-Karp 2002). Ordinary citizens are less and less interested in participating, evidenced by the generally low turn-out at government community consultation initiatives. When the community does attend in larger numbers, it is most often because the issue has already sparked community outrage, inspiring those with local interests to attend and protest. In their endeavour to change this situation, government agencies have created and disseminated ‘how to’ community consultation manuals, conducted conferences and run training sessions for staff. Issues of focus have included project planning, risk analysis, stakeholder mapping, economic analysis, value assurance, standardisation and so forth. Implementation models have illustrated a desired shift from informing, educating and gaining input from citizens, to collaboration, empowerment and delegated decision-making. Although new engagement techniques have been outlined, it has not been clarified how agencies can achieve such a radical change from eliciting community input to collaborative decision-making. Regardless, to reassure the public that improvements have been made, community consultation has been ‘re-badged’ to ‘community engagement’. A new vocabulary has developed around this nomenclature. However, the community has remained unconvinced that anything much has changed. The question is: Why hasn’t the community accepted these efforts with enthusiasm? The most optimistic response is that there will be a lag time between the announcement of improvements and actual improvements, and an even longer time lag between seeing the results and a resumption of the community’s trust in government. The more pessimistic response (one that also has resonance with many public sector staff) is that in essence, not a lot has changed. The ‘re-badging’ and management improvements have not resulted in the public feeling more engaged or empowered

Consulting Communities When Patients Cannot Consent: A Multi-Center Study of Community Consultation for Research in Emergency Settings

OBJECTIVE: To assess the range of responses to community consultation efforts conducted within a large network and the impact of different consultation methods on acceptance of exception from informed consent (EFIC) research and understanding of the proposed study. DESIGN: A cognitively pre-tested survey instrument was administered to 2,612 community consultation participants at 12 US centers participating in a multi-center trial of treatment for acute traumatic brain injury (TBI). SETTING: Survey nested within community consultation for a Phase III, randomized controlled trial of treatment for acute TBI conducted within a multi-center trial network and using EFIC. SUBJECTS: Adult participants in community consultation events. INTERVENTIONS: Community consultation efforts at participating sites. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: Acceptance of EFIC in general, attitude toward personal EFIC enrollment, and understanding of the study content were assessed. 54% of participants agreed EFIC was acceptable in the proposed study; 71% were accepting of personal EFIC enrollment. Participants in interactive versus non-interactive community consultation events were more accepting of EFIC in general (63% vs. 49%) and personal EFIC inclusion (77% vs. 67%). Interactive community consultation participants had high-level recall of study content significantly more often than non-interactive consultation participants (77% vs. 67%). Participants of interactive consultation were more likely to recall possible study benefits (61% vs. 45%) but less likely to recall potential risks (56% vs. 69%). CONCLUSIONS: Interactive community consultation methods were associated with increased acceptance of EFIC and greater overall recall of study information but lower recall of risks. There was also significant variability in EFIC acceptance among different interactive consultation events. These findings have important implications for IRBs and investigators conducting EFIC research and for community engagement efforts in research more generally

Community consultation report: Kielder

This report is based on consultation work completed on behalf of the Lynx UK Trust (LUKT) in and around the Kielder area from August 2016 to May 2017, and was requested by the LUKT to fit with their timeline for a licence submission to trial a reintroduction of Eurasian lynx (lynx lynx) to the UK. As the planned consultation activities are incomplete, this is presented as an interim report, and conclusions should be considered as tentative. Nevertheless, initial findings point towards a reasonably divided community, with most residents still undecided or unsure regarding the proposed reintroduction of lynx and a small minority either firmly supporting or opposing the project. This position is similar to the results of an independent national omnibus survey conducted as part of a national public survey in respect of the proposed trial lynx reintroduction (Smith et al., 2015). At this point in the local consultation process there has been insufficient communication with those groups likely to be most affected by the project: primarily from the farming and forestry sector (IUCN, 2013:11). This is one of the IUCN’s key social feasibility guidelines (Social Feasibility 5.3.3) and for key areas of project policy, for example around livestock predation compensation schemes and mitigation measures, we would expect to see genuine co-development of policy and protocols with the farming community. This work has started in Kielder but given the controversial nature of this project it will take considerable time and effort to establish a trusting relationship with some of the human communities in and around the Kielder area. As the IUCN (2013:11) indicates, understanding the ‘extreme and internally contradictory attitudes of such key stakeholders provides the basis for developing public relations…orienting the public in favour of a translocation.’ It is our view that any licence application at this stage would be premature and would threaten the longer-term viability of the project

Community Consultation in Risk Management

Disaster and risk experience remain a global pandemic. The community as a vast plate of numerous stakeholders is an embodiment of the team that is capable of managing the global risk exposures. The argument is that, the immediate community plays a vital role in risk management. The study methodology used in exploring community consultations in risk management was through the triangulation of researchers’ experience and a sectoral approach which entail the convergent parallel mixed-method of community consultations. Secondary data was obtained from some selected case study community consultation programmes in risk management organised by selected risk management agencies in South-Eastern and Northern region of Nigeria. The Youth Transformational Leadership Collaborative Initiative within the National Emergency Management Agency (NEMA), National Youth Service Corps and the NEMA-Military Joint Task Force and the Borno State residents programme reports iterates that communities are frontline stakeholders in risk management. Case study of community disaster risk management in some Africa countries was also documented. Extensive consultations with key stakeholders coupled with a healthy sustained collaboration among the stakeholders led to improved coordination in the fight against insurgency in the communities in Borno state. It was identified that coordinated information dissemination between communities to the Task Force was an effective mechanism for community policing and risk reductions. It was identified that low level of public awareness of disaster risk, unavailability of relevant data, weak capacity and inadequate personnel, lack of political will amongst others were the challenges to community consultation in risk management in Nigeria. The study proposed community-based disaster risk management approach, which entails intensive and extensive consultation to build people’s capacity of coping with disaster risks towards creating safer and resilient communities

Planning and governance under the LGA: Lessons from the RMA experience.

The purpose of this report is to identify ways in which experiences gained from the RMA as a devolved and co-operative planning mandate can enable local and central government and other stakeholders to more effectively implement the LGA. The report is based on findings from the FRST-funded research programme on Planning under Co-operative Mandates (PUCM). We argue in this report that the experiences gained from the RMA can inform effective implementation of the LGA in three important respects: Preparation and implementation of LTCCPs; The community consultation process for formulating community outcomes; and Māori participation in planning and governance

Community and Parent Decision-Making - A Review: Action Guide for Parents and Communities

In many sections NCLB requires that community and parents be involved and this involvement is usually called "consultation". Consultation requirements occur on a number of different levels -- federal, state and local school district levels, and often call for "representatives" of parents and/or the community to be selected to advise NCLB officials.Many of the community and parent decision-making opportunities pertain to Title I, but many other programs under NCLB, not part of Title I, require parent and community consultation as well. This Brief contains only those parent and community roles that require ACTION, and does not include the various provisions where state and local school districts must provide "information.

How and Why Deliberative Democracy Enables Co-Intelligence and Brings Wisdom to Governance

Over the past decade, state and local governments throughout Australia have focused on how to improve community consultation. Government consultation processes, regulated with the best of intentions to involve the public, have come under heavy criticism as being DEAD (Decide, Educate, Announce and Defend). It has become apparent that the problem community consultation was supposed to fix – including the voice of the community in developing policy and plans – has remained problematic. Worse, the fix has often backfired. Rather than achieving community engagement, consultation has frequently resulted in the unintended consequence of community frustration and anger at tokenism and increased citizen disaffection. Traditional community consultation has become a “fix that failed”, resulting in a “vicious cycle” of ever-decreasing social capital1 (Hartz-Karp 2002). Ordinary citizens are less and less interested in participating, evidenced by the generally low turn-out at government community consultation initiatives. When the community does attend in larger numbers, it is most often because the issue has already sparked community outrage, inspiring those with local interests to attend and protest. In their endeavour to change this situation, government agencies have created and disseminated ‘how to’ community consultation manuals, conducted conferences and run training sessions for staff. Issues of focus have included project planning, risk analysis, stakeholder mapping, economic analysis, value assurance, standardisation and so forth. Implementation models have illustrated a desired shift from informing, educating and gaining input from citizens, to collaboration, empowerment and delegated decision-making. Although new engagement techniques have been outlined, it has not been clarified how agencies can achieve such a radical change from eliciting community input to collaborative decision-making. Regardless, to reassure the public that improvements have been made, community consultation has been ‘re-badged’ to ‘community engagement’. A new vocabulary has developed around this nomenclature. However, the community has remained unconvinced that anything much has changed. The question is: Why hasn’t the community accepted these efforts with enthusiasm? The most optimistic response is that there will be a lag time between the announcement of improvements and actual improvements, and an even longer time lag between seeing the results and a resumption of the community’s trust in government. The more pessimistic response (one that also has resonance with many public sector staff) is that in essence, not a lot has changed. The ‘re-badging’ and management improvements have not resulted in the public feeling more engaged or empowered

“We just built it:” The Room 14 community consultation process

WVML embarked on a robust community consultation process that informed the development of its new teen space

Consultation unlocks interdisciplinary resources: A community museum evolving in the Kelabit Highlands, Malaysian Borneo

This article discusses the role of community consultation in the process of developing a community museum in the Kelabit Highlands in Sarawak. It reflects on the relationships between heritage conservation, cultural tourism and competing community aspirations.  &nbsp

‘Community Voices, Curatorial Choices’: Community Consultation for the 1807 Exhibitions

This paper argues that community consultation is not always a democratic process as power often resides with museum staff members who decide which community views to accept and which to ignore. Drawing upon a series of semistructured interviews with community members, community officers, curators and other museum staff as part of the 1807 Commemorated project, I attest that consultative group members often experienced frustration, anger, and disappointment during and after the development of the 1807 exhibitions. These emotions were primarily driven by the communities’ unmet needs and expectations as well as by a clash between object-centric curatorial choices and people-oriented community voices; members of the African-Caribbean community viewed their participation in the consultation meetings both as a means of empowerment of their communities and as a gesture of acknowledgement, social justice and recognition. Thus, it is imperative that community consultation is replaced by active negotiation and engagement that is aimed at shared power and ownership