The Final Draft of Council's Community Engagement Policy 2021 has been adopted. A copy of the Policy can now be found here or in the document library below.

The Community Engagement Policy establishes an engagement framework with a set of principles that will guide best practice engagement to enable meaningful and genuine opportunities for community involvement in decision making processes.

"Thank you all who took the time to review the draft policy and provide feedback - your input has helped shape the final policy" Cr Rasic.

We invited the community to provide feedback on a draft Policy from 21 December 2020 through to 17 January 2021. The feedback we received showed strong support for the engagement principles listed in the Policy;

• Transparency and Integrity
• Accountability
• Responsiveness
• Respect
• Fairness
• Human Rights

Feedback also showed a strong community desire for genuine approaches by Council when engaging with the community on local priorities and the future of their community. Approaches important to the community included;

• Listening to community views
• Promoting projects broadly for greater awareness
• Allowing enough time for consultation
• Presenting expert data
• Providing online opportunities to participate
• Keeping community informed through the project stages
• Working collaboratively with the community
• Engaging in other languages

This information demonstrating what the Brimbank community would like to see, along with the key principles and best practice approaches will guide Council staff when designing and delivering opportunities for community to participate and be involved in Council's decision making processes.

For more information on the consultation outcomes, the full report is also provided in the document library.

We are reviewing our Community Engagement Policy and would like to hear your thoughts on how Council should undertake community consultations and how you would like to participate.

This Draft Community Engagement Policy is an overarching community engagement framework. It will guide Council on how we ask your views on a range of local priorities and the future of the community. Your views are important in informing Council decisions, projects, policies, plans and services.

This Draft Policy is informed by past community consultations and is in accordance with the new Local Government Act 2020 which is a principle based Act with Community Engagement as one of the five principles. The Act requires Council to adopt a community engagement policy on or before 1 March 2021.

The Draft Policy aligns with the Victorian Auditor General’s Officer Public Participation Principles and the International Association for Public Participation.

By providing your feedback, you will help shape the way Council makes decisions about things that matter to you in Brimbank.

Thank you for providing your feedback on this project, consultation is now closed. We are now reviewing all feedback and look forward to sharing the outcomes with you.