Stage 5

Key Points from Project Plan Checklist

1. Have you considered learning opportunities/support on consulting and engaging with communities, including marketing to hard-to-reach groups through the Community Planning Support Team?
2. What methods of consultation/engagement will you use?
3. Have you chosen a method that will produce a representative sample of the target audience?
4. Have existing mechanisms been used alongside anything additional you chose to do to inform and stimulate public interest, particularly in relation to major strategic and island wide issues?
5. What equipment and supplies will you need?

How should I carry out my consultation/engagement?

The method or methods that you decide to use will depend on the issues that you want to find out more information about and the stakeholders that you’ve identified. A wide range of methods may need to be used as will the use of existing networks and mechanisms to consult – even for issues outside their usual remit. Consider using a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods. What do you know about your audience? What do they respond to best? What’s worked well before?

Quantitative Methods are usually based on a representative sample of people who will give you an accurate picture of the population. These methods are aimed at the collection of data that can be subjected to statistical analysis. If your key question concerns 'how many' individuals have a particular view of your service, the quantitative method will be your main type of approach. Quantitative data is generally collected through asking fairly straightforward closed questions which make it possible to carry out statistical analysis using computers. Analysing quantitative data involves 'number crunching': results are usually expressed as percentages and frequencies.

Qualitative Methods have more to do with attitudes, views and opinions and the reasons why people feel the way they do. If your key question is why individuals have a particular view of a service, then a qualitative method will be your best approach. Qualitative methods allow you to gain a full picture of a topic and its context, explore the complexity of associations between topics, explain in depth the reasons for behaviour or views, understand processes, generate and test ideas. Qualitative research typically involves group discussions or in-depth interviews to gain information, but is less about the number of people involved and more about the type of information you are trying to get. Analysing qualitative data involves clustering those strands of opinion that are related to one another.

There are several Community Planning checklists available online that you can use to help aid you in this process. This includes Equipment & Supplies; Who to Involve; Neighbourhood Skills Survey; Community Plan Content; Initiatives Needed.

In addition to this there are other resources that you can tap into –

• Event Checklist
• Shetland's Online Community Directory
• Community Engagement Case Studies, Good Practice Locally
• Community Engagement Case Studies, Good Practice Nationally
• Communities Scotland 'How to Guide'
• Effective Community Engagement, Community Planning Advice Note 5.
• Community Engagement with Minority Ethnic Communities 'How to Guide'
• How-to Guide on Involving LGBT People in Community Planning

• Useful Formats (Strategy planner, Workshop planner, Action planning event planner, Action planner, Progress monitor, Evaluation form) These formats can be downloaded as Rich Text documents which you can then edit or add to.