Having considered what the terms ‘community’ and ‘community engagement’ mean and Government approaches to the process, this next section looks briefly at the community experience.
Reality and Rhetoric
Research and feedback from communities across the UK indicate that participants in community engagement sometimes perceive a substantial gap between the rhetoric of community engagement and real life.
Timescales for consultation, lack of opportunity to influence policy, over formalised procedures and excessive use of jargon are cited as major issues by community groups. These inconsistencies can produce mistrust, which can damage or even sink new initiatives.
By contrast in many situations strong, vibrant working relationships have developed, resulting in thriving projects and activities that have made a lasting difference to local well-being. These successes have been entirely dependent on dynamic collaboration between local communities, Authorities and partners.
To help avoid some of the difficulties described above, the table below lists strongly contrasting views that have sometimes existed between Communities and Authorities. These may or may not be present, but where they are, they need to be urgently tackled or cynicism will take over!
The Gap: Contrasting Views of Engagement
| Community Views | Local Authority Views |
| ‘The council is one of many Authorities that provide local services. They obviously don’t talk to each other’ | ‘They don’t even know which Council we are’ |
| ‘The council is remote and bureaucratic’ | ‘The public is ill-informed. They have unrealistic expectations’ |
| ‘We are practical’ - ‘They produce bureaucratic waffle’ - ‘We need the parish pump repairing’ | ‘We understand the bigger picture’ - ‘They are parochial’ - ‘What’s a parish pump? |
| ‘We often miss funding opportunities because the Council didn’t tell us about them’ | ‘The public are uninterested or unwilling to become involved, anyway its our job to deliver services’ |
| ‘We will work with the Council if the issues are relevant to us’ | ‘The public don’t understand the issues that we have to deal with’ |
| ‘The council used us to tell Government that we were consulted. Nothing changed though!’ | ‘Community Engagement is yet another Government requirement. It is costly, slows us down and stops us doing our real jobs.’ |
| ‘The real decisions have already been made. There is a hidden agenda that we don’t know about.’ | ‘We can’t tell communities everything; if we did it would be chaotic.’ |
Is it worth it?
Finally, the biggest question for most people regarding community engagementespecially if they are busy people, is: Is it worth it?
Research shows that three factors appear to be most likely to motivate people into active engagement:
- The issue under discussion is significant and relevant to local lives
- Local interests are threatened
- There is a belief that worthwhile benefits may be created through the process
In other words if you work in a Local Authority or Organisation and wish to carry out Community Engagement, remember:
- If it isn’t relevant, don’t bother!
- If it is relevant, make it worthwhile
- If it’s threatening, wear a hard hat!