Go Vocal’s blog—get insights, advice, and all the latest information on trends to help you foster meaningful engagement.
Engaging the public on the complex topic of local planning poses significant challenges. To explore how a well-crafted communications strategy can help overcome these hurdles, we sat down with Mark Prichard, the Head of Communications for West Oxfordshire, Cotswold, and Forest of Dean Councils (UK) to talk about their recent success.
Planning involves making decisions about the future of our cities, towns, and countryside. So it goes without saying that involving as many people in your community as possible is crucial. As a council, this means making community engagement in local planning a success. In this article, we list best practices and share examples of effective local planning consultations to get you inspired.
Starting on April 1, 2023, the Regulator of Social Housing (RSH) will require that all registered providers of social housing need to collect and publish a range of information on areas such as repairs, safety checks, and complaints to follow a universal set of requirements. Based on their consultation on tenant satisfaction measures (TSM), these new regulations will allow tenants to hold landlords more accountable to provide safe homes and quality service to tenants.
Our local governments are becoming increasingly more tech-driven, yet digital participation isn’t always growing at the same speed. So, what are the main barriers to participation and how can digital tools help?
Participatory budgeting can be a powerful tool for local councils to educate, engage, and empower communities. As one of the methods ranking highest on the participation ladder, this kind of engagement project transfers considerable decision-making power to residents and stakeholders and thus maximises the many benefits of community engagement. But what does it all entail? And how do you get started?
We hear it often: you want to reach more of your community, and go beyond the same 10 loudest voices in the room. You want your process to be more inclusive so that everyone has the tools necessary to fully participate. However, some groups are harder to reach than others. So how do you reach beyond your usual audience?
More and more local governments are engaging their communities in decision-making. Whether it’s to increase trust or create more inclusive policies, community engagement has become a central part of local government and we’ve found that digital engagement with CitizenLab leads to 12x more participation on average. To help local governments keep up, engagement teams are being formed in cities all across the country.
Trust is a two-way street. To convince your community that your engagement efforts and digital community engagement platform are trustworthy, they need to feel heard and included. In our experience, it takes time to build trust, but there are several good practices to help you get started.
Participatory budgeting — or, in plain English, involving community members in the allocation of public funds —is a powerful tool for councils to empower their community members and co-create more pleasant, accessible, and equitable places.
