From the Draft Engagement Strategy:
“The advantage of a quantitative approach is that it produces valid and statistically correct data. The disadvantage with the approach is that it does not provide detailed information about how key stakeholders feel about the proposal and does not enable people to suggest alternatives or to become significantly involved in the process.
Qualitative engagement tools allow key stakeholders to be involved in the process to have their say, voice concerns and comment on detailed proposals or possible courses of action. Examples include focus groups, public meetings, forums and information sessions.
Such engagement techniques are valuable for understanding the perceptions and views of the community, generally those members who have a significant stake in the proposal or have strong feelings about it. It is very important to recognise that qualitative engagement techniques do not, however, provide information about the total numbers who support the proposal.
A common error is to confuse the two methodologies and assume that a qualitative methodology has provided quantitative data. For example, because 100 people have attended a public forum and supported a proposal, it can be wrongly assumed that the proposal therefore has community support. Hence a forum can provide information about WHY people support the proposal but provides little information about HOW MANY in the overall community support the proposal.”
AND
“Community engagement processes will be regularly reviewed and evaluated to ensure that they adequately capture community views, that methods are accessible, timely and easy to use for community members and any appropriate improvements be made
to Council processes”.
Glen Eira Debates 
May 28, 2011 at 2:52 PM
Righto, qualitative is bad and quantitative is good because it’s statistically valid. Pull the other leg! Easy as pie when you write the questions to get the answers you want and then you call this statistically valid even though you’ve only asked 500 people out of over 100,000. These 500 really and truly let you know the “total numbers who support the proposal”. What a load of you know what. Bet yas that no other policy in the state undermines a methodology as this rubbish does. Christ do they really think that people are so bloody stupid to swallow this gunk.
May 28, 2011 at 4:42 PM
Anon, don’t be so negative. I applaud the Council for the initiative of community engagement. I would encourage residents, time permitting, to contribute in a constructive way to the Consultation on Community Engagement. The deadline is end of May. But I am sure that submitters can get an extension of time. Just ring them up next week.
And ‘gleneira’, stop seeing everything the Council is doing as useless. If you want a debate then you must give all perspectives and arguments a chance. You seem to be rubbishing the Council (by giving vent to angry people) regardless of what they do.
Question for you ‘gleneira’, is there anything that you would keep from existing arrangements? Or would you prefer to do a Kennett, get rid of the Council and install Commissioners (1994)? Or do a Bracks and install an Administrator (2005)?
For me I would never go back to those ‘bad’ old days, whichever State Government is in power. Do it democratically by voting in Councillors that can best represent residents well. But do ratepayers know who can represent them well? That is the question or rather the biggest problem! But why?
May 28, 2011 at 7:48 PM
I disagree re the Kennet comment. Amalgamating Councils and forcing them to competitively tender their services was the best thing that ever happened in Council. Rates fell and the services improved. Unfortunately Labour took over and brought in “best value” which was essentially meaningless and has led to higher rates and inefficiencies. The “bad old days” were quite good for Glen Eira and far better than residents have received for the past 12 years.
May 29, 2011 at 12:26 AM
Yes, let’s go back to the “bad old days”. They were streaks ahead of what we’ve got now. Or just maybe the problem isn’t with the system as such, but the people we allow to run the local systems.
May 29, 2011 at 9:19 AM
Kennett was full of ideas, some of them good and others lousy eg Docklands development. But he did not loose his 1999 election because of his ideas good or bad. He lost it because he acted as an infallible ‘dictator’ (his biographers tell of ‘His sense and regard for hierarchical loyalty, punctuality, and general intolerance of dissent or disobedience may be traced to this period’ in cadets and the army). As a Liberal Party leader he was considered ‘an erratic and unapproachable leader’ with a “bull-in-a-china-shop” style.
It’s interesting that liberals tend to get such leaders and people into Parliament. Many of them think that they know best and they are ‘born to rule’. One of such people is Dr Napthine http://www.mideast-times.com/home_news.php?newsid=3314 . As a Minister for Racing he supports unreservedly Jumps Racing and Melbourne Racing Club.
There are some Glen Eira Councillors that think the same way, know best and born to rule. Just listen to their arguments, which says community and ratepayers are not relevant.
May 29, 2011 at 12:59 PM
Looking back at the past is helpful only in part. It could tell us a lot about how we got to where we are now, but doesn’t actually solve the problem of many residents. As I see it, the premise upon which all of Glen Eira’s policies and strategies are based is very simple – exclude ratepayers from having any say in the running of this council. The quotes that are in this post make this really obvious. So, it doesn’t matter what Kennett said or did years ago. Any policy is only as good as the motivation behind it. When you have a council that is fully committed to working with residents then whatever the words on a scrap of paper, the result will be effective communication and consultation. Or you can go the other way, which is what Glen Eira Council does all the time. You can mouth the appropriate phrases, and in the end, fulfill your legal requirements in this fashion, and still have poor or non existent interchange with the community. The words themselves are irrelevant. What has to happen is that the premises and values that underlie such policies are exposed and then changed. If this means getting rid of councillors and administrators, then so be it.
The owners of this site have got it right in my view. There is nothing wrong with criticism when such criticism is warranted and documented accurately. Watching the rising number of hits, then I’d also argue that there are plenty of residents out there who want to hear another version of events rather than the self serving spin that always comes out of this council. Then whom to believe is up to us and we are not held captive by the well paid spin doctors.
May 30, 2011 at 3:09 PM
Its a bit early to be rewriting history about the Kennett-era “reforms” of local government. We’re still recovering from the lack of investment in infrastructure. While one of the stated intentions was to reduce rates, the practical effect was for Councils to spend less on maintenance and capital investment (roads, footpaths, drains, parks, kindergartens, …). Compulsory competitive tendering brought with it a rarely-discussed downside, which was the lowering of quality and standards. It is anathema to businesses whose success critically depends on controlling the quality of their inputs to produce high quality goods and services (as per the Total Quality Management philosophy). It is a mistake to think that services can be treated as a commodity.
I support the stated benefits of community engagement, but historically Glen Eira has undermined them by failing to link explicitly the decisions being made with the consultation that theoretically underpins those decisions. A much clearer rationale needs to be published when key decisions are made.