The Brief from ACC
ACC reviews its investment in Safe Communities
Like many government agencies, ACC manages hundreds of contracts with external providers. One of those is a contract with the Safe Communities Foundation NZ. For over 20 years, ACC has supported Safe Community coalitions around New Zealand. These are collaborative groups that work together to reduce injuries and improve safety in their local area.
ACC had previously undertaken two internal and one external report to better understand the return on their investment in Safe Communities. The most recent report recognised the challenge of attributing a reduction in injuries to the Safe Communities model.
The reports left ACC uncertain about its investment in Safe Communities. Before making a strategic decision about this long-standing relationship, ACC wanted to have a strengths-based conversation about how to unlock the potential of Safe Communities.
ACC engages Business Lab to understand how to unlock the potential of Safe Communities
ACC realised they needed more than just a one-off survey or event to genuinely engage the diversity of Safe Communities. They turned to Business Lab as engagement experts to guide and facilitate the process, having heard about our involvement with the Smart+Connected programme with Marlborough District Council.
Our Approach
A scoping process to understand the opportunity
We began with a scoping process with ACC and SCFNZ. We interviewed a small number of key people to help both parties understand whether this was an opportunity they wanted to take forward.
“That meeting with the Foundation in Auckland was crucial - where we sat down and connected with them on a personal level. We didn’t ask you to do that, you obviously just intuitively knew it was required. For me, that really set the tone.”
We then supported the formation of an Oversight Group with members from ACC, the Foundation, the Ministry of Health and several Safe Communities. This group was to become our codesign partner. Their input was crucial to help us design an approach that would make sense to people involved in Safe Communities.
Working with friction
We encountered some resistance to the project at the outset. In reviewing this later, Geoff Wilson, SCFNZ Trustee, reflected:
“People in injury prevention are often driven by research; they talk about being ‘evidence-based’. So we had some pushback with this project because it wasn’t about identifying best practice and rolling that out. This was about tapping into what the community was saying and galvanising some action around that. That was a pretty different approach to what we normally do.”
Friction is a positive sign in engagement, as we’ve written about in “Is Low Trust Hamstringing Your Organisation?”. Friction builds trust. The opposite of friction is complete silence - and that’s never a good sign when you are engaging people on something that matters to them.
In response, we adapted our engagement approach as we went based on feedback from the Oversight Group and Safe Community members.
“We wouldn’t be where we are now without your flexibility, that was a definite strength. Your ability to listen to feedback and respond productively was really important. Otherwise the whole thing could easily have fallen over.”
A range of methods to enable participation and build momentum
The engagement process spread across 12 months and included a range of methods to enable participation around the country:
40 one-one-one interviews
a survey of over 100 Safe Community members
two events with partners and potential partners in Wellington
conversations with Safe Communities led by ACC’s regional staff
regular updates for senior ACC staff.
“It was one of the most robust processes I’ve seen in injury prevention to engage the customer.”
Throughout the process, we worked with the Oversight Group to narrow the focus to a small number of high-leverage opportunities. The purpose was to identify a small number of opportunities that would unlock the potential of Safe Communities. And how did we get on?
The Result
In July 2019, we wrapped up our work with the project - and the next phase began. We handed over a collective plan to guide the future direction of Safe Communities and some recommendations about how ACC and the Foundation could take those opportunities forward in partnership with other organisations and the Safe Communities network.
“We’re really pleased about the outcome. The plan is looking great and has been really useful to shape our thinking. We had a session with our regional staff and they’re excited.Our Head of Injury Prevention can see the potential of the network and it’s helped us to get to the point where we can easily and quickly write a business case, which is extremely valuable.”
We’re now working with ACC to share the outcomes of the process internally - both to embed the outcomes of this process, but also to share the lessons learned from this process.
“It’s not really the normal way we go about engaging with our stakeholders. For one, we usually do that internally - and I think there’s real value in having somebody external run the process. But it’s also more extensive than we usually do, and that’s given us a much better understanding about the network.”
And we’re excited by the potential for the Safe Communities network to work in a more cohesive way nationally - with a vision that more clearly explains the value of Safe Communities to government agencies in Wellington.
“Communities will only do things that matter to that community. What we were doing was trying to figure out what those drivers are, and why they would want to act. Your ‘social engineering skills’ were crucial for that. Getting people into the room and drawing out their ideas and concerns out of them in a relaxed and friendly way.”
Do you want to unlock the potential of your strategic partnerships?
Good partnerships don’t happen by accident. Our role is to be the “glue” that sticks good organisations together as partners. So if you’re keen to unlock the potential of a strategic partnership, let’s talk.