Community Outcomes Review
What are Community Outcomes?
A way to view community outcomes is that they are 'the things that the community thinks are important for its well-being'.
The Local Government Act 2002 has set out how to improve the way that all local authorities around the country work with their communities. To begin, councils have to establish what people value for their future and what they want for themselves, their communities and their city. The ‘community’ includes businesses, government, agencies, regional agencies and people across all sectors. Establishing what the community wants is only the beginning, as these goals will have to be acted upon, by the community, including council. Think of it as an ongoing city conversation, changing as the city changes and always informing us of our thinking.
What is the purpose of Community Outcomes?
- The purpose of community outcomes are:
to provide opportunities for communities to discuss their desired outcomes in terms of the present and future social, economic, environmental, and cultural well-being of the community; and
- to allow communities to discuss the relative importance and priorities of identified outcomes to the present and future social, economic, environmental, and cultural wellbeing of the community; and
- to provide scope to measure progress towards the achievement of community outcomes;
- to promote the better co-ordination and application of community resources; and
- to inform and guide the setting of priorities in relation to the activities of the local
authority and other organisations.
What is the Community Outcomes process?
The first step is to find out or identify exactly what the community thinks is important. This can mean a couple of things: what is important right now and what is important in the future, say 10 years from now. To do this right, we need to try and reach and talk with as many different sectors, groups, organisations, schools etc. in the community as possible. The Community Outcomes information from this process will be fed into the Council draft Long Term Community Plan.
The second step is to work with community groups, schools, businesses and the many agencies that keep the city moving – to work out how progress may be made towards the community’s outcome. This could include discussing the different roles various organisations or community groups can play.
The third step is to figure out ways of measuring and reporting on how well we are moving towards the achievement of your outcomes. To do this we will be working with many organisations and community groups to measure “is the city getting closer to what it wants?”
The outcomes will then be divided into Key Focus, High Priority, Important Outcomes.
What is the Council's role?
The council's role is to facilitate the process to identify community outcomes and to report (at least every three years) progress that has been made against the identified outcomes.
There is no requirement for the Council to contribute to any outcome but the legislation clearly say's the Council has to take stock of what the community has told them is important and working out how it will contribute towards achieving the outcomes.
How long is this Community Outcomes conversation?
The legislation has been careful not to make this a fixed process that only takes a one-time snapshot of the community's views and wants. Instead, as the face of the community changes over the years, priorities of things it think are important may change - so this conversation that has begun will continue and be updated regularly. The legislation therefore requires the community to review the community outcomes every six years (the 10-Year Long Term Community Plan will be reviewed every three years). We will 'report' back to the community every three years on the progress that is being made to achieving the outcomes.
Haven’t we already had this discussion with the community?
Yes we did in 2003, but Community Outcomes is an ongoing consultation with the community.
This is now a review of those 2003 Outcomes.
Previous ‘consultations' tended to be about council-specific issues, whereas the Community Outcomes conversation is about a bigger picture – everything that affects our everyday lives, now and in the future. Also, this discussion or conversation involves the whole community – including council, government agencies like police and social services agencies, schools,
businesses and many community groups – and aims to bring them together to help deliver communities and a city that people want.
What were the Community Outcomes identified in 2003?
- A growing economy
- Diverse and quality educational opportunities
- A safe and healthy community
- Recognition as a great place to live and visit
- Development of amenities and recreational opportunities
- Development of the full cultural and environmental potential of the Whanganui River
- People working together
What part can we play?
Your feedback on what you think is important. Ask yourself what you want Wanganui District to become? The conversation has just begun, and it will be an ongoing conversation, so keep giving us your views and feedback.
Community Outcomes are designed to ensure that Wanganui remains a viable, dynamic and responsive District over the next decade. This is important to the communities we serve. It’s also important to Wanganui’s future. We are counting on residents and communities to make a continuing contribution to shaping the future of Wanganui.
What happens next? Do I have a say in the process and the outcomes?
There will be an extensive dialogue process (consultation) within the Wanganui community to review our Community Outcomes.
Consultation will be undertaken through two main processes:
- Engagement focus group meetings with Key Community Stakeholders with interests in the following issue areas:
- Economic – business, tourism, infrastructure
- Environmental – river, coast, energy, climate, waste
- Social – education, safety, health, housing, youth, civil and political
- Cultural – Iwi, Maori, arts, heritage, sport, recreation
These meetings will take place over April/May 2008 and will be run by community lead agencies with assistance from Council.
- Community Engagement:
Council will be engaging with the general community on the Community Outcomes review through a range of opportunities including key public events, key public places, Councils website, key community facilities and direct questionnaires through Community newsletters. These opportunities will be available through May and June 2008 and will be advertised closer to that time.
There are also opportunities for groups or organisations to contact the Council and be involved, so if you know of groups that wish to participate please contact the Council.
Community Outcomes teams are being launched to facilitate the above engagement processes programmed for April/May/June 2008, to identify the outcomes and take those desired outcomes, analyse the data and provide results to the community and enable feedback. Council will specifically seek feedback about the priorities within the Community outcomes to enable us to rank them. The prioritise outcomes will then be tabled to the Council for endorsement in September 2008, and the Policy and Planning Team that is representative of the Council will coordinate the policy process and integrate the outcomes into overall Council policy.
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