Significance & Engagement Policy
Understanding what communities need and want helps Environment Southland with the decisions it has to make. The more significant the issue, the more important it is that we engage with the people who are likely to be affected.
Our relationships and engagement with the community, other councils, tangata whenua and government agencies are extremely important to our activities. Partnership and collaborative arrangements provide unique opportunities to work alongside people with different interests and skills on projects of common interest.
In line with the Local Government Act, the Council has adopted a Significance and Engagement Policy that lists the Council's strategic assets and provides a community engagement guide.
Environment Southland has three strategic assets: a 66.48% shareholding in South Port New Zealand Limited; the flood scheme infrastructure, which includes stop banks, dams, culverts and floodway land; and the joint Emergency Operations Centre for natural hazard and maritime oil spill response. The policy also sets out thresholds for when community engagement should occur based on significant spending and change.
This policy will help the Council to identify how significant an issue is and to clarify how and when communities can expect to be engaged, transparently and early in the process.
The policy uses the internationally recognised IAP2 Public Participation Spectrum, which provides a progressive range of engagement options: Inform, consult, involve, collaborate and empower.
