Short Description of IPEN Public Engagement Toolkit

The IPEN public engagement toolkit was co-designed by 60 officials, third sector representatives and academics from over 30 countries at the International Parliament Engagement Network Conference on 26 March, 2021. The toolkit has been put together with the assistance of Nifty Fox creative.  The toolkit has four key elements. 

  • What is public engagement? 
  • What does good public engagement look like?
  • What are the key steps and enablers to public engagement?
  • How can we evaluate engagement work?

These four elements are designed to help decision makers and other participants in the parliamentary system improve the quality of their public engagement. 

 

What is public engagement? 

Public engagement with parliament means actively engaging diverse members of the public in the process and work of the parliament.  This means building relationships of listening and trust so that the parliament and the public can collaborate together to reach a common goal. 

 

What does good public engagement look like?

Good public engagement differs depending on the subject area and the public or publics that you are seeking to engage with, but in general good public engagement will be:

  • inclusive - making sure your engagement initiative is citizen centered and focused on enhancing trust
  • open and transparent - having a clear process of communication and getting back to people about your outcomes. 
  • Collaborative - working together to define the agenda, develop recommendations and closing feedback loops so that people can shape decision-making and hold decision-makers to account. 
  • empowering - for both the parliament and the public.  The public should feel that they're being heard and can influence change and parliament should feel like it's deepened its understanding of public issues and its knowledge. 
  • flexible -  strategies are responsive, flexible, and adaptable and the format or method of engagement meets the needs of the target audience.

What are the key steps and enablers to public engagement?

There are five key steps to successful public engagement. The first step is preparation. This includes defining participants and strategy. The second step is information gathering resources and having clear and consistent messages showing that both sides can be educated. The third step is participation. This includes targeting champions, trying to reach the disengaged and using technology to reach new audiences. Consultation is the fourth step and this means having visible feedback loops, and being equitable and meaningful in engagement. The final step is evaluation. This includes measuring impact and establishing the outcomes, so that next time you can improve your practices. 

 

How to evaluate public engagement work?

If we value public engagement, it's important that we try and work out whether we're doing it well and how to make it better in the future. This means after we've engaged, we need to collect information about the number of people we've engaged with and the diversity of those people, as well as the response rates to invitations. We also need to actively seek out qualitative feedback. This includes asking people whether they were satisfied with the engagement experience and investigating who isn't engaging and why. We also need to measure impact. This includes tracking the journeys of people we've engaged with and thinking about where the engagements led to policy or process change.

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Welcome to Terra Nova, an idea developed by IPEN to showcase their public engagement toolkit in a fun and interactive way.

Terra Nova is a virtual 'escape room' experience you can play on your browser. You will be introduced to a story, and will have to solve 7 puzzles, each inspired by a different element of the toolkit.
We recommend you play with friends or colleagues, although you are welcome to play alone. If you want a challenge you can set a timer for yourselves for 1 hour and see if you can complete the game within this time limit.

Good luck and have fun!