Information strategies underpin any
community engagement activity. Effective
information provision allows citizens and
clients to understand the issue and to
decide whether they want to participate
in a consultation or active participation
activity. Internal information provision
strategies should also be developed to ensure
government decision-makers are well informed
about the engagement process, its progress
and any issues that may arise throughout the
process.
Government may seek to simply provide
information to community members
(ie. information provision) or to provide
information to the community whilst also
being open to receiving information from
the community (ie. information sharing). For
example, information sessions were provided
to the Gold Coast community members prior
to Gold Coast Schoolies 2003. During these
sessions, information was provided by state
government representatives with regard to
the management of the Gold Coast Schoolies
week preparations. Information sharing was
also encouraged to progress some issues.
While one-way information provision
can enable a large number of people in a
community to learn about an issue, the
reasons for focussing the level of engagement
activity to information provision only must be
made explicit at the outset.
Before initiating either an information
provision or an information sharing process it
is important to refl ect on the insights gained
from community research (refer section 2.2)
and consider: