Embedding engagement
Managing expectations: public confidence
In any engagement process, you will be sending messages to people about the work that an organisation does and how it does this work. You will need to make sure that the messages are the right ones for your organisation and the process, and do not impact negatively on public confidence in your service. You need to recognise, understand and manage the risks involved.
It will also be helpful to think about the messages that people might hear about an engagement process. These might include:
- numbers of people involved (will people be suspicious if small numbers of people are consulted, even in an in-depth process such as a citizens jury?)
- engagement topics (is the topic seen as important or marginal to people? Are services seen to be at risk as a result of the work you are doing? How can this message be counteracted?)
- communication around events and consultations (have a wide number of people seen invites and flyers? Has outreach work taken place among certain communities? Have people got an incentive to be involved?)
- weighting assigned to different groups' views (are some people's views seen as having more weight than others?)
- conclusions and decisions made (what has been decided and who was involved? Is the exercise seen as genuine or a fait accompli?)
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