Difficulties with community participation

Community participation will not always run smoothly! The nature of changing relationships and sharing power is that processes are less predictable. This can be frustrating for you, and for the communities involved. When things go wrong, consider two top tips:

1. Getting over difficulties together can be a really positive and formative basis for a future relationship. All successful community participation activity showcased here and elsewhere will have involved challenges and hiccups – what eventually made them a success was the process of re-building from difficult situations with communities as partners.
2. This is a great time to share with colleagues, who may have experienced similar issues or have ideas for unblocking the situation.

In this section you can explore some common pitfalls and problems. In addition, all of our case studies include a section on key challenges and how they were addressed.

• I now realise that I started too late: It is often only when you start community participation activities that you really understand the planning cycle required. If you find that you don’t have enough time to complete an activity as hoped, or you are not managing to engage participants, then immediately use this opportunity to build your planning for the next cycle of activities. Acknowledge any weaknesses in your approach with existing participants, and use this opportunity to build a relationship and gain their buy-in for a more meaningful round of activity in the future. It is better to take this long-term approach rather than taking tokenistic actions which might alienate people and frustrate your future activities.

• The community don’t understand the constraints I’m working with: You and the communities that you are working with have different knowledge and perspectives on any issue. Some of your areas of work might be highly technical and hard to explain. This might require a longer-term approach to building the knowledge and understanding that will support communities to make informed decisions. There might also be areas of their knowledge and experience which you are overlooking, and which need to be acknowledged before progress can be made. Sometimes communities won’t agree with underlying parameters of the work, which are outside of your control, and you will need to take a conciliatory position to acknowledging these frustrations while making progress on areas of shared interest. A few tools to help you move forward include:
• Can you use creative mechanisms to share information or build knowledge, potentially over a period of time? Check out great examples of innovative consultation methods and unlocking planning methods.
• Do you need to consider a staggered or facilitated process to build understanding and buy-in around different constraints and perspectives? You can see an example of a multi-staged approach to problem-solving.
• Do you need to build your own skills around moderating difficult conversations? You can find support.

• My project can’t be meaningfully influenced by communities at this stage: There are times when either plans have already been confirmed before specific individuals or groups have a chance to participate, or where opportunities for communities to meaningfully influence a project are limited yet there is still a responsibility to consult. It’s always important to be fully transparent with communities about the influence that they are able to have at any stage. Where a consultation offers limited scope for influence, consider whether it should happen at all, and whether another type of participation activity would be more meaningful. Where you have a duty to conduct consultation activities, consider this activity as part of a wider range of approaches to share meaningful information about the project’s parameters, and what opportunities there are to build relationships or engage communities more broadly with connected activities. For more details about sharing information with communities and integrating community participation with statutory consultations see the toolkit sections on Planning how you want to the community to be involved and Statutory and written consultations. Also see the situation above for additional ideas.

• My outreach efforts aren’t working: There might be several reasons why outreach efforts aren’t working. Consider whether you planned enough time. Consider whether communities are experiencing “consultation fatigue” arising from historic or current council activities – which might be true even when you are trying to take a new or more meaningful approach. This will probably require you to build more trusted relationships before you can do meaningful work. And consider whether your participation approach is really meeting the priorities and interests of the community right now. It might be that you are asking the wrong questions, or asking in a way which doesn’t feel relevant or appropriate.

Whatever the contributing factors, it’s worth considering again what will truly make this feel relevant and important to the people at the heart of this issue. You might need to take a step back to focus on listening to what current priorities and concerns are. You can read about a great example of open-ended listening and engagement.

• I’ve made a mistake and people are angry: It can be hard to acknowledge mistakes and apologise, but this is an important step in demonstrating that you are genuinely open and transparent. Apologies can also be an important step in diffusing people’s anger so that you can move forward constructively. Use this as a chance to take feedback for your next round of participation, and show that you are open and honest in your approach. This will help build a stronger relationship for future participation activities.

• My timelines are too tight to allow for community participation: Sometimes there are fixed external timelines (like statutory processes) which limit your ability to involve the community. When this is unavoidable, it’s best to be honest about it, along with the reasons. You should immediately take this opportunity to plan greater participation into your next round of activity.

• I’m getting too many different perspectives and opinions – I can’t incorporate them all: Often there will be many conflicting and strongly held views on your work. This is normal and will reflect the wider differences in opinion in society at large. In situations where it is impossible to incorporate all viewpoints, it’s important to acknowledge this and support communities to understand why it’s still worth engaging in the process, even when individuals are unlikely to have all their preferences satisfied. Consider whether there is a way to offer communities supported and facilitated ways of engaging with each other directly so that they can appreciate different perspectives and work on creating common-ground together. You can see an example of this approach. You might also want to consider the principles of consensus-building, both in the way that you structure your activities and in specific meetings or events.

• I’ve built in community participation activities but people still don’t feel listened to: Sometimes community participation will raise expectations faster than you can deliver. Or you might feel like you’ve done everything possible to enable the community to participate, but this isn’t what people are saying. This requires a mixture of curiosity, resilience and resolve. You need to be curious about why people feel that way, and be ready to take their feedback into your next round of planning – there is always something about your approach that can be adjusted. You need to be resilient to recognise that communities’ experience of the council will be multifaceted, and perspectives might relate to issues outside of your control. And you need to be resolved to see this process as a journey, and not a destination. Hear from Barnet residents about why this journey is worth going on.

• I am working with partners who aren’t on board with this approach: Some of your work might closely involve partners who don’t share your approach. This might limit your ability to implement the project as you would want to. Where possible, this is worth considering at the start of new projects i.e. selecting partners based on their alignment with a participatory approach. Where this is not possible, you should create an opportunity to explain what the benefits of your approach will be (e.g. a more sustainable long-term project; aligning with the council’s approach), and explore where they can be flexible. As a minimum, be transparent with the community about where different boundaries might lie and why. Take their feedback into the next round of planning.