Community Engagement Case Studies

Good Practice Locally

Shetland the Long Range Forecast

During November 2004, Shetland - the Long Range Forecast, took place to try to find out what people in Shetland would like their community to look like over the next ten, twenty, thirty years, or so. A dedicated week of events took place and there were plenty of opportunities for everyone in Shetland to have there say.

Your Voice Questionnaire sent out to local citizens panel (600 members)
Postcards for comment were distributed via a mail shot to all households in Shetland.
Comment and answers to questions could be written, phoned in or sent by text;
A Webstie was built: www.myshetland.org.uk/haveyoursay. This included a daily poll vote, a lively discussion forum, online questionnaire, news and updates about the project; an image gallery; and info about community planning;
A short questionnaire could also be cut out from The Shetland Times, completed then returned to the Policy Unit.
Children and Young people could visit the 'Future Zone' at Clickimin to discuss their ideas; or take part in the drawing/story competition that was run through the Schools.

Face-to-Face discussions were also held using existing forums - Freefield Centre, Pupil Councils, Youth Clubs, Local Events and Business People.

What worked well

Website Discussion Forum
Website Daily Poll Vote
Website online questionnaire
Website image gallery by decade (70s; 80s; 90s; 00s)
Economic Development debate with 5th and 6th year pupils
Future Zone discussion tent
Email questions sent out to business and industry
Posters, coasters & postcards
Local folk reading out radio adverts
Giving everybody who wanted to be involved the chance to have their say
Using existing forums to engage with folk
Providing people with lots of different opportunities and methods to get involved

What didn’t work out so well

Text messaging: on hindsight text messaging would lend itself better to closed questions. Our questions were open ended and weren't spontaneous enough to insite a text response. Questions requiring a text response would be better closed. The question could then be written on the promotion with the text number next to it . This would allow the public to engage in text messaging at the point the promotion message first hit them therefore achieving a greater response rate.
An important stakeholder group was omitted from the exercise; those Shetlanders who are studying outwith Shetland. This is a key stakeholder group and the group we most want to encourage to return to Shetland.

Due to the success of the Have Your Say website it has been decided that this site will remain active as a Shetland resource that others can use in engaging with the public. The discussion forum in particular captured the imagination of the people in Shetland and an online Shetland Community has subsequently developed from this.