Earlier this year two of the Business Lab team attended a “community engagement event” hosted by a central government department. 

It was a bit of a shambles.

It began with a 30 minute lecture from the officials who told us why the proposal was necessary and beneficial.

Question time was then dominated by our local MP and a few city councillors. We witnessed some heckling, arguing and awkward silences. 

And then the event was over. We left having barely spoken a word to anybody.

Feeling frustrated, we wandered back to the office to share our feedback through the online survey. We got halfway through the 50 question survey before giving up in frustration and moving on with our lives. 

Consultation and engagement are often confused

Our experience of this “community engagement” is common. And it frustrates us because it gives engagement such a bad name.

Government and community organisations in New Zealand often talk about consultation and engagement as though they are the same thing. Let's be clear: they are not.

They are both forms of public participation - yes - but they are different levels of participation. Here’s one way of conceptualising this: it’s the Co-production Ladder made famous by the New Economics Foundation.

Why do people mix up the terms?

To start with, we’ve had little guidance from law-makers. Legislation like the Local Government Act use the terms ‘engage’ and ‘engagement’, but the terms are not defined.

The International Association of Public Participation has stepped into the vacuum. We owe a lot to IAP2 but some of its tools and approaches have been poorly implemented or have had unintended consequences.

Its five-stage spectrum of public participation is often the primary tool used by local and central government agencies to guide their thinking. For instance, the Local Government Act requires councils to adopt a Significance and Engagement Policy, and most of these are heavily informed by the IAP2 spectrum.

But many people seem to use the spectrum without a deeper understanding of what the different terms mean. The spectrum also seems to suggest that the institution holds all the power and capacity to make things happen. Even the definition of “empower” is about what the institution will do. “We will implement what you decide” is the promise. But what if the community doesn’t want the institution to implement anything, but they want to take action for themselves? The spectrum doesn’t seem to consider this.

And to further confuse matters, there’s no mention of “engagement” on the spectrum, despite the term’s ever-increasing popularity.

Still confused? This should help.

To help you understand the differences, we’ve created this comparison table. It unpacks what we believe are the key differences between these two levels of public participation.

Perhaps the key point here is that consultation is a cost that offers little longer-term value. It’s a project cost.

Engagement, however, adds ongoing value. By improving the relationships between an institution and its communities, engagement is an investment in building capability for the future.

You can learn more about that in our next blog post, which will look at three harmful myths about community engagement.

This article is Part 2 of 3 articles written in partnership with Peter McKinlay of the Local Government Think Tank and McKinlay Douglas. Peter is a big-picture thinker with his eyes on the horizon looking at where we might be heading with local governance in New Zealand.

You can read Part 1 here, which explores the opportunities for councils to take full advantage of the opportunities for community engagement.

You can read Part 3 here, which explores common misperceptions about community engagement and shows the powerful reality of investing in integrated public engagement.