Is Community Engagement Valuable for Local Government Planners.

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IS COMMUNITY ENGAGEMENT VALUABLE FOR LOCAL GOVERNMENT PLANNERS. Introduction This report will focus on the effectiveness of community consultation and its contribution in Local Government planning. Six employees of a Local Government shire were asked to complete an anonymous survey. The survey questions were based around community engagement techniques. Perceptions of citizen input were captured through responses given by the participants on the success of engagement techniques and the influence that those who partake have on the decision making process. Local Government staff stated that citizen participation was most effective, when educated citizen activists were involved and that most participation relating to planning was seen as ‘Tokenism’. In considering the nature and capacity of citizen participation, it is important to have some basis for understanding what constitutes its effectiveness through literature on the subject. Context Sherry Arnstein's ladder of citizen participation (1969) was used in the survey to shape much of the discussion of participatory processes. Arnstein's model describes the process of citizen empowerment corresponding with varying stages of involvement. “The ladder juxtaposes powerless citizens with the powerful in order to highlight the fundamental divisions between them.” (Arnstein, 1969,) The theory basis is the greater degree of empowerment of the citizen, the better the outcomes are for society as a whole. Community participation requires Planners to implement methods and strategies that enables meaningful interaction with non-government organisations and citizens, in order to prescribe solutions to meet communities diverse set of needs. Citizen inclusion is seen as being included in the realm of representative democracy, therefore the need for citizen input in planning process can be questioned.

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