Engaging with our community
The purpose of Canterbury Regional Council’s (Environment Canterbury) engagement with mana whenua and the wider community is to enable the people of Waitaha to influence Council decision making in a fair and equitable way, ultimately delivering better outcomes for the region, now and into the future.
Our Engagement, Significance and Māori Participation Policy outlines when and how community involvement will occur.
Our next Long-Term Plan (LTP) will cover our work for a 10-year period from 2024-34. We've started preparing this LTP and so we also need to look at this key policy to see if it’s fit-for-purpose or what changes can be made. We want your opinion as we start this piece of work.
This survey closed at 5pm Friday 16 June. You will find a copy of the report summarising the feedback to the right of this page.
Background
Some of our engagement work means we must consult the community because of legislative requirements, known as ‘special consultative procedure’. This is where the Local Government Act 2022 tells us when we must consult and engage with the community on particular matters. Examples of this are Long-Term Plans and bylaws of significant interest.
Otherwise, we consider the significance of the engagement. We work this out by assessing the degree of importance of the issue, proposal, decision, or matter. We look at its likely impact on, and likely consequences for:
the region
any person who is likely to be particularly affected by, or interested in, the issue, proposal, decision or matter
the capacity of the local authority to perform its role
the financial and other costs of doing so.
In general, the more significant the matter, the greater the need for community engagement. Sometimes our operational work will be highly significant to those immediately impacted, but it may not otherwise trigger ‘significance’ under this policy.
The level of influence we use internally sets out the level of participation and influence the community can expect to have when we're engaging. This is based on the IAP2 spectrum of public participation. We have adapted it for our use, largely to include a level called co-design. The levels of influence, from low influence to high, are: inform, consult, involve, collaborate, co-design and empower.
Principles of engagement
Included in our current Engagement, Significance and Māori Participation Policy is what we call principles of engagement. These state how we will engage with the Canterbury community, regardless of the type of conversation or who we are talking to. In the current policy, our principles of engagement are respect, mutual benefit, genuine participation, equity, inclusivity and integrity.
Types of conversation
We use a conversation framework to determine the type of conversation(s) that we should be having. When a project, plan or decision is first brought forward to us, consideration is given to who we should be talking and listening to, and what kind of conversation we should be having.
The framework is:
1. understanding the vision – a blue skies, aspirational conversation to share and capture ideas from all parties
2. check understanding – a concept sharing and checking conversation to make sure we’ve listened and that there is a shared understanding
3. formal feedback – engagement or consultation on a draft plan 4. final release – sharing a final plan
5. getting practical – working through the best ways to implement a plan.
