The National Principles for Public Engagement in Wales
By Emma Watkins
In this masterclass Amanda Williams from Participation Cymru went over details of the 10 principles for public engagement practitioners;
1. Engagement is effectively designed to make a difference,
2. Encourage and enable everyone affected to be involved, if they so choose,
3. Engagement is planned and delivered in a timely and appropriate way,
4. Work with relevant partner organisations,
5. The information provided will be jargon free, appropriate and understandable,
6. Make it easier for people to take part,
7. Enable people to take part effectively,
8. Engagement is given the right resources and support to be effective,
9. People are told the impact of their contribution,
10. Learn and share lessons to improve the process of engagement.
Amanda explained that the aim of these principles is to ensure good quality and consistent engagement is undertaken with service users and the public, by those who provide those services. These principles were written in cooperation with those who actively take part in public engagement and with the welsh government who endorse these principles. The principles are not statutory and so can only be promoted by encouraging groups to sign up to them. Amanda then spoke about the benefits of good public engagement; sustainability, effectiveness, responsiveness, transparency and accountability, as well as equality, as being key. A member of the class volunteered ‘innovation’ to be added to this list. The Engagement model was also touched on, which is based around informing, listening and consulting, involving partners and empowering and delegating.
The class was then divided into groups to talk about how they would implement these principles into their own projects. An interesting point raised in the discussions was - what responsibility does the public who you engage with have, to go along with their extensive rights? This was answered by another participant, stating it simply is not possible to expect anything from them, but that if you engage with them appropriately following the principles listed above these members of the public will realise their social responsibility, and give back. In short it is your responsibility to encourage their ongoing participation.
‘Devolution’ was also discussed, stating that sometimes when the money is received by the research body they are less willing to let it go, and that steps need to be taken to ensure this is not the case. This is a point concerning ethics, centring around funding, someone volunteered that the funding should be kept somewhere other than where the research is taking place, ideally closer to the public, further that there should be a specific ‘pot of money’ that is not used for anything else.
