As of July 2018, every Alberta municipality is required to have a publicly available Public Participation Policy. The policy must be reviewed and, as required, updated every four years.
Public engagement is more than people sharing input with you through activities such as open houses and surveys. It’s all the steps you will take to effectively involve people in your decision-making process
Public engagement is your approach to involving people in your municipality’s decision-making process.
It starts with having a good set of criteria to decide when it is helpful to involve members of the public in your decision-making process and extends to letting people know how you used their input as well as evaluating how well public engagement supports your decision-making.
This Public Engagement Guide offers a step-by-step look at how to fulfill the requirements of your Public Engagement Policy and make public engagement work for you. It is supplemented by a Public Engagement Workbook that provides easy to use templates to help you develop your approach to public engagement, as well as plan and implement it. There are references throughout the workbook, indicating where you will find templates that correspond with the content in this guide.
