2010 John Jago Award
In its inaugural year, the John Jago Award went to a council which demonstrated innovation in mediating very different and often entrenched community views on the St Kilda Festival.
2010 Award winner
Port Phillip City Council: St Kilda Festival Review
This review was a response to being acutely aware of the polarised views in relation to the Festival. From those voices of some longer term residents not in favour due to concerns of the associated antisocial behaviour to those voices from young people who actively participated in the event. This diversity of views coupled with the complexity of issues surrounding such a major event that attracts 400,000 people, required a comprehensive process for the analysis of issues.
- A formation of a Community Reference Group was considered by Council as way of bringing some of the diverse voices together.
- The process sparked much public interest, simultaneous to Council’s own e-consultation feeds through ‘Have Your Say’ and on-line discussions, an active independent debate kicked off on Facebook – ‘Save St Kilda Festival’ with 2,421 followers.
- Its success was due to Port Phillip supporting, promoting and acknowledging the breadth of public debate on the issue; the provision of research data in informing the debate and Council’s decision making process, and the considered thought and committed time provided to a truly representative Community Reference Group
Shortlisted entries
Banyule City Council: Greensborough Project
This project is a series of individual projects which aim to achieve the overall vision for Greensborough.
- As well as widespread community buy-in at all planning stages, the Project involves a Community Consultative Committee including community members, businesses and traders, local schools and community organisations
- Banyule has at all stages met the challenge of the community feeling that its views were unimportant and other challenges in capturing community views through the use of regular, accessible and non-jargonistic terminology; feedback including project bulletins, DVD presentations, internet resources; early consultation at family friendly times and places, ongoing evaluation of consultation practices
- Banyule stated in their nomination that their governance has improved due to their approach being innovative, accountable and transparent
- Just as several members of their Community Consultative Committee have sent in endorsements for their processes, the independent panel set up to review their structure plan also commented on their extensive public participation processes which they observed had led to very few objections for such a significant planning scheme amendment
Manningham City Council: Civic Precinct Community Hub
This includes Manningham’s 20 year vision for Doncaster Hill to provide an urban village including a Community Hub of local services. It is noteworthy that the community was given ‘ownership’ of the project from the beginning by way of a public naming competition which attracted 160 entries.
- Right from the outset Manningham sought to overcome barriers to the successful planning of their Community Hub by genuinely involving several education and other community service organisations on their Community Hub Governance Committee, a Service Liaison Committee and through the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with all participants
- As well all know, co-locating a diverse range of community services can be a challenge, and collaboration hard to achieve if people do not feel as though they are equal partners
- Manningham sought to overcome this barrier by looking at ways these services can collaborate now, even before buildings are finished, as well as ways that programming of services can be done in a collaborative way
- Their efforts to achieve service integration are managed through the previously mentioned MOU
- In their nomination, Manningham also provided extensive materials such as their Engagement and Communication Plans
More information
For more information about the John Jago Award and the 2010 nominations, including the opportunity to view the detailed entries, please feel free to contact Member Relations Officer, Chelsea Ayling, on (03) 9349 7983 or by email.