Friday 27 July

What’s the Future Tairawhiti? Gisborne District Council’s long term plan early engagement campaign has won the Excellence in Public Sector Engagement category of the Deloitte IPANZ Public Sector Excellence Awards 2018.

Chief executive Nedine Thatcher Swann and customer engagement manager, Anita Reedy Holthausen accepted the award in Wellington on Wednesday night.

“We could not be more proud,” said Ms Thatcher Swann. “This award is a credit to our team of staff, whose enthusiasm and energy for the campaign made it the success that it was.”

“We were stunned when WTF was announced as the winner being up against intense competition from much larger public sector agencies.

“We’re delighted the What’s the Future message and brand, created and lived by our staff throughout the campaign has been recognised at a national level.”

What’s the Future Tairawhiti ignited community engagement to develop the direction of Council’s 2018-2028 Long Term Plan.

The Awards judges said of this campaign: “This is a great example of full-on engagement. The community was involved at all stages, the initiatives involved were immersive, and it had a significant success rate of 700% improvement in participation. It used creativity and humour, organisational bravery and a real sense of values and commitment to those values.”

“Instead of just holding community meetings, we engaged around 2,800 people through our presence at 35 community events, spaces and hui, schools and groups,” says Ms Thatcher-Swann.

“We sought to improve engagement with hapu, and whanau at a community level, staff attended a series hui-a-iwi at marae and with various marae kitchens, committee and roopu.

“The WTF Tairawhiti purpose-built, mobile-capable and fully bilingual website enabled shared conversations across the community – from school children to pensioners.

“The edgy campaign provided platforms to engage with our people who don’t normally engage with Council to connect with us and participate in the future planning of our region.

“We will repeat innovate and engaging approaches for future consultations building on what all of the community wants, not what you think they need.”

ENDS

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