Have your say on community engagement

Improving how we include our community in Council decision making starts with strengthening our Community and Stakeholder Engagement Policy. This Policy sets the rules for when, why and how we’ll ask what you think about something that affects you, so you can contribute to the Council decisions made about it.

Consultation on the draft Policy is open until 10 January 2020. We know this timing isn’t ideal, but the Community and Stakeholder Engagement Policy 2021 must be considered at the 16 February 2021 Ordinary Meeting of Council to meet Local Government Act 2020 deadlines.

We’ve already made some big changes to the Policy in response to feedback received in the first phase of consultation in November 2020. One of these changes is including a principle to promote fairness and equality in community engagement, which was supported by 84% of survey participants.

We also heard that the two engagement principles most important to our community are participants must be representative of the people affected by a project, and participants must have access to objective, relevant and timely information. That’s why we’re adding an Engagement Plan Overview to our Have Your Say project pages, so you can see who we’re consulting with and how a decision will be made. We’re also committing to providing clear information about projects to inform your feedback, and setting timelines to report back engagement results and project decisions.  

You can read the draft Policy and have your say at yoursay.bayside.vic.gov.au/community-engagement-policy-review