Fourteen local authorities have submitted entries for the Department of Internal Affairs (DIA) Award for Excellence in Community Engagement, making this the largest category in this year’s LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards® and the second highest level of entry ever received in an individual category.
The Award recognises projects that demonstrate excellence community engagement, empowerment, or partnerships.
Taituarā Chief Advisor, Raymond Horan, said that the entries showcase two of the major strengths of local government – the closeness and the knowledge of our communities.
“These two factors make local government a partner in the governance of New Zealand. They also demonstrate examples of co-design from the ground-up, and empowerment of communities to deliver or make decisions for themselves. All publics sector agencies can draw lessons from these.”
The entries come from across all activities of local government – from supporting coastal adaptation in a small community to a spatial plan, to removal of pedestrian level crossings near a railway station. The councils who entered range in size from Hurunui District Council (population 11000) to Auckland Council (population 1.6 million).
Raymond notes that several entries focus on how councils engage with hard-to-reach communities.
“We were interested to see several entries focussing on how councils engage with communities who don’t always participate in engagement processes.
This includes two councils submitting substantial changes in approach to the way they engage with young people, and another telling us a story of how they engaged about the future of a facility accessed by the visually impaired.”
Many of the best examples from this year’s competition will feature in upcoming Taituarā learning and development events.
The winner of this Award, the other six category winners and LGFA Taituarā Local Government Excellence Awards® will be announced at the Taituarā Gala Dinner and Excellence Awards at the Dominion Museum in Wellington on 13 June. If you would like to be a part of this celebration of excellence, more information is available here.
This Award and the Gala Dinner would not be possible without the sponsorship of the Department of Internal Affairs, now in their eighth year as a sponsor. We thank them (and our sponsors) for their ongoing support.