What can I use e-Consultation to do?

Consultation is a dialogue amongst community and council. e-Consultation can enhance traditional face-to-face or paper-based consultation tools.

This Guide will look specifically at how you can use e-forums, online polls and online surveys.

Developing greater citizen participation
You can use e-consultation tools to increase the public’s level of involvement with local government. You may already do things to enhance community engagement and participation in government, such as running open forums on local issues, using surveys to find out what issues matter to your local citizenry, or having a suggestion box in your Council foyer. It is not a great leap to run the same kind of general forums and surveys on your website or have online feedback and your say forms.

The key to making these tools work, as with all consultation, is to act on the community input – for example, on the basis of the e-forum discussions or survey results, your Council could pick focus areas for policy development and let the community know what action you are taking.

Consulting community members in the policy making process
There are two main points at which consultation with community is particularly helpful in policy making:


 * at the beginning, when you have an issue you want to develop a policy on and are looking for general ideas and views from the community - “blue skying”
 * once you have a policy approach and want to get community input before it is finalised – this stage is generally known as consultation

Blue-skying
Your Council (eg you, your boss or a Councillor) may have identified an issue which you want to have general discussion on before you start developing policy or deciding your program priorities.

Consultation on proposed policy
Consultation on a proposed policy approach is a recognised step in the development of policy by government officials on behalf of government. For more information about consultation generally, visit:
 * Victorian Local Government Association
 * Darebin City Council's website

Currently, you might:


 * develop a draft discussion paper or policy paper and release it for community members’ comment
 * hold open meetings and meetings with specific community representatives
 * form a working group of people in the field to advise Council in the project’s development.

To make decisions
You might want to get a clear direction from community members on a specific issue with their input helping to establish a clearer mandate. In this instance you could use an online poll or survey.

Overview table: aims and e-consultation tools
The following table matches goals of consultation with e-Consultation tools.

For further information on e-consultation and its role in policy development a further reference in an Australian context is the Online Policy Consultation document available at http://www.agimo.gov.au/practice/delivery/checklists