Our ability to effectively engage and partner is still very important to our community. This, along with Council lobbying for better outcomes with state authorities, are significant contributors to the overall satisfaction of our community.

As a newly established organisation, a lot of the engagement conducted over the past 5 years has been related to strategies development and direction setting. Feedback across many projects since amalgamation indicates a high level of satisfaction with our approach to engagement and supporting processes.

During this period, we have also introduced a brand new have your say website, updated and centralised or CRM database, and implemented many new engagement tools and techniques that support the way we engage with the community.

Council established Strategic Reference Groups (SRGs) to further harness the expertise and perspectives of local residents. The SRG aligned to the six community outcome areas:

• Environment.
• Places for People.
• Community and Belonging.
• Economic and Smart Communities.
• Transport and Travel.

• Participation and Partnerships.

The first term of SRG has now concluded, and we are currently looking at ways to improve this important activity into the future.

Council has developed strong partnerships with many organisations to achieve the community’s aspirations. Examples of our partners include state government departments, emergency services, non-profit organisations and local community groups. Projects such as the community battery which has been a partnership between Ausgrid, Council and the state government demonstrate how we can achieve improved outcomes for our community. The battery makes it easier for residents to switch to solar power, improving our environmental sustainability.

Dedicated resources have been established to provide a single source of contact for local residents’ associations, chambers of commerce and other community groups to share their concerns with Council and have them addressed as quickly as possible.

Council partners with local organisations, by supporting projects and events that align with the community’s aspirations. This includes providing seed funding for environmental, community development, creative arts and sporting groups.

Whilst the Northern Beaches region is universally loved by residents and visitors, the people who live here and who visit are far from homogenous. The Northern Beaches can be divided into distinct localities, each with a different vibe, and those localities are inhabited by all sorts of different people. Further to this, our community has different opinions on what the best outcomes or solutions are for each project.

Everyone has different ways they like to receive information and provide feedback. Many of our residents just want a short and simple snapshot while others have the capacity to spend more time reading Council documents and providing feedback and would like more detailed and technical information.

Our goal is to provide equal opportunities for everyone to learn about a project and have a say regardless of how much time or technical knowledge they have. This also includes those groups that are more challenging to reach such as young people, people with disabilities or people from culturally and linguistically different backgrounds.

Our community has expressed a desire to codesign and coproduce community engagement activities which is challenging as this would require additional time and resources for engagement planning.

We have heard that there is a desire for Council to collaborate further with the state government, in particular playing a stronger advocacy role for the community in areas that are outside Council’s responsibilities. Examples raised by the community include advocating to higher levels of Government for funding of transport, infrastructure and services.

People express a strong sense of local identity on the Northern Beaches. They value their local environment, their places and their fellow people.

This is unlikely to change over time. There are opportunities to capitalise on this camaraderie to build skills in community development, so locals can create the community connections to help everyone withstand both population and climate change pressures. There is community enthusiasm for community building programs.

Council has the opportunity to review its community engagement strategy to broaden methodologies for community engagement beyond the traditional ‘opt in’ methods of engagement and requests for suggestions that can skew to negative responses.

There are opportunities around education and information leadership on key strategies and projects to enable people to be engaged with Council from an informed base. Timely provision of information can help people to decide on solutions that are in everyone’s best interests.

There is an opportunity for Council to continue to strengthen its existing partnerships with state agencies, emergency services, non-profit organisations and local community groups. Maintaining dedicated resources and single points of contact for local organisations will help concerns to be addressed.