Public Consultation Toolkit - Civil Service College

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Public Consultation Toolkit 39 40 Public Consultation Toolkit In Singapore, the government may wish to also consider a four-phase communication strategy process 4 to consult on policies/initiatives 6.3. Step 6: Generate awareness and plan public communication exercises Generating stakeholder awareness and planning a public communications exercise is a critical aspect of public consultation. There are generally two approaches for any agency to take as they prepare for a public communication and awareness exercise: 1. Open consultation – this involves communicating to key stakeholders including the general public that a consultation exercise is going on. The agency should keep both the broadcast and print media aware of the issues and the actual consultation process. At the same time, the agency should try to think ahead and prepare their positions in anticipation of any difficult issues or responses raised. 2. Closed door consultation – this involves only communicating to a selected or targeted group and inviting them to participate in the exercise. The consultation is conducted away from the public eye and the media. 1. Listening phase – an early fact finding stage, where there is no need for any major public communications campaign. The messages during this phase could be to assure the public that no decision has been made and that a decision would be made only after rigorous evaluation of the issues involved. 2. Holding phase – At this stage, press statements can be released to explain rationale for policy/initiative. 3. Consultation phase – At this stage, state explicitly when and how public consultation would be conducted to ensure the public does not feel that the government has already made up its mind. 4. Buy-in phase – With the assumption that a decision had been made on the policy/initiative, the government should explain why it decided on that policy and its plans. A public communications plan should be developed to provide a structured and well-planned approach to engage the stakeholders. A suggested communications plan checklist, outlining the key components of a communications plan, is outlined in Table 6-2. There are two key objectives in generating awareness: 1. Educating stakeholders on the policy or initiative. This will increase the likelihood that the feedback provided will be meaningful. 2. Increasing awareness about the consultation exercise, to ensure adequate participation from targeted stakeholders. Possible channels/platforms for raising awareness • Exhibitions and road shows • Government websites • Mailers • New media, e.g., blogs • Partnerships (with nongovernment organisations, business and trade associations, grassroot leaders • Media events • Press releases • Public notices • Information kits • Site visits 4 Source: Public Consultation: Re-inventing Dialogue, Singapore: Centre of Governance and Leadership, Civil Service College, 2004.
Public Consultation Toolkit 41 42 Public Consultation Toolkit Table 6-2: Public Communication Plan Checklist Objectives of public communication exercise • Goals of this communications exercise (e.g., to generate awareness and increase participation level for public consultation) Key messages • Rationale for public consultation (why consult?) • Proposed changes to policy/initiative (what are the desired outcomes?) • What agency hopes to achieve from the consultation (what can we achieve?) • Potential benefits of proposed changes (what is the rationale for the proposed policy initiative?) • Specific messages for each of these groups Target Audience • Direct stakeholders - Who might benefit from policy changes? - Who might be affected by policy changes? - What are the specific implications on them? • Interest groups - Who might be interested in the issue? Strategies • For technical issues/policies/initiatives which are targeted at selected groups – determine if there is a need to engage in a publicity campaign or if engaging selected target groups in a closeddoor session would suffice • For general issues/policies/initiatives – wider publicity efforts may be needed as they impact the masses Tactics/channels • Select appropriate tools/media/platform according to the policy/initiative • Based on the target audience, select the most effective channel(s) of communication (e.g., web, portals, blogs) Timeline • When does the communication start? • When does the communication have to be completed by? • What are the key milestones in the exercise? Roles and responsibilities • Who are responsible for crafting, delivering and tracking the messages? • Have both the policy department and corporate communications department within the agency worked closely together to craft and launch the public communications exercise? Status • Track the completion status of activities (e.g., on track, completed, delayed) Evaluation • Determine/track whether the communications exercise was effective in generating awareness and increasing participation level Table 6-2: Suggested checklist for public communication exercises Source: Ministry of Information, Communications and the Arts (MICA) Case 11: URA Master Plan 2008 Agency/country: • Urban Redevelopment Authority (URA), Singapore Background: • URA Master Plan 2008 guides Singapore’s physical development over the next 10 to 15 years. It incorporates the future development plans for key land uses such as housing, recreation, community, business, land transport and infrastructure needs. • Public consultation and stakeholder engagement was an integral part of the Master Plan process by URA. Consultation Process: • During the development of the Master Plan 2008, URA conducted stakeholder dialogues for the key growth areas of Jurong Lake District, Kallang Riverside, Paya Lebar Central and the new Islandwide Leisure Plan. The dialogues involved key stakeholders such as architects, developers, business organisations, NGOs, academics and the community. The dialogues allowed the plans to be detailed to the stakeholders and for them to give URA feedback on the proposals. Based on the input received, URA refined the proposals for the public exhibition. • The draft version of the Plan was exhibited to obtain public feedback - Virtual plans and videos were uploaded on the URA web portal; and - Physical plans, scaled models and videos were exhibited at the URA Centre. • Over 185,000 people viewed the draft Plan at the URA Centre and the website and 300 written feedback was received on the Plan. • Based on the public input and feedback, the Master Plan 2008 was refined further before being gazetted on 10 Dec 2008. • In addition, URA developed a roving exhibition which brought the Master Plan 2008 proposals to eight heartland malls. This raised public awareness of the Master Plan and key proposals and informed the wider populace of changes that would take place in their neighbourhoods. • More than 200,000 heartlanders visited the roving exhibition at the eight different venues. More than 1,300 written feedback was received. The online website garnered a visitorship of 47,200 hits over the four-month period.
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Public Consultation Toolkit - Civil Service College

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