Thank you to everyone that participated in the second year of Banyule's Community Engagement (CE) staff survey to asses the organisation's CE knowledge, confidence and capability.

49 staff across all directorates completed the survey, and helped to create a Year 2 data set to tell us if there was any change in our practice since the Year 1 survey in 2022.

Findings were presented to our Executive and Senior Management Teams on 2 November 2023. A findings snapshot can be seen in the 'What we heard' section below, or check out the full report.

Thanks to your participation we've gained greater insight into how the CE Team can support the organisation and developed this list of actions to further strengthen our practice.

In April and May 2023 we ran the Year 2 of Banyule Community Engagement (CE) staff survey.

The Year 2 survey established a second data point to compare Year 1 findings and assess if there was any change in the organisation's practice over the previous 12 months.

Key findings from respondents' self-assessments include:

Actions to respond to the Year 2 findings over the next 12 months will focus on supporting teams to gain experience and build confidence delivering CE activities, aligning with our organisational priority to connect with our community.

From now and during 2024, keep an eye out for the following:

• more capability building, including more CE 101 workshops and sessions to build confidence with in-person engagement
• a seminar on deliberative engagement, and how deliberative engagement is different from other forms of engagement
• opportunities to get your hands dirty during engagement on our next Council Plan 2025-29
• more workshops to build awareness of our CE Policy, planning process and the support the CE Team can provide.

Read the full findings report and check out the status of all actions to read more about the ways the CE Team will respond to what you told us.

In April 2022 we asked you to self-assess your level of community engagement (CE) knowledge and experience.

The responses tell us that while there are different levels of capability across the organisation, there is a solid base of CE knowledge and experience to draw from.

You also responded to a questions about participation in CE training.

While the low level of formal CE training suggests that existing knowledge and experience comes from learning on the job, you also told us that you think training opportunities would improve your CE knowledge, confidence and practice.

You've probably noticed some things we've done to respond to what you told us. Here are some highlights:

The first organisation-wide survey to establish a Community Engagement (CE) knowledge, confidence and capability baseline was sent to all staff in April 2022.

The same survey was repeated in April 2023 to assess if there had been any change in the 12 months since the Year 1 survey.

The CE Team uses the data collected to identify gaps and build our collective CE knowledge, confidence and capability. This supports implementation of our CE Policy, which is a requirement under the Local Government Act 2020.

The CE Policy guides delivery of our CE activities and embeds the following principles:

• communication of clear objectives and scope
• provision of information that leads to community members' informed participation
• representation of community members in matters that affect them
• provision of reasonable support so that community members can participate in engagement activities
• clear indication of how people's participation will influence decision-making.

These principles reinforce the importance of community participation in designing, delivering and evaluating projects to make sure they reflect local needs, are safe and embed local knowledge in project thinking.