Community engagement: MPA occasional papers

The MPA Community Engagement Unit is conscious of belonging to a wider community of public participation practitioners, and of its responsibilities to that wider community. We are keen to use our own experience and reflections on that experience to contribute to the development of the theory and practice of community engagement, public participation and local governance. This series of occasional papers is one way of doing this. Papers will be published from both members of the unit and invited external contributors.

While the MPA is keen to stimulate debate on community engagement issues the views expressed in the occasional papers are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the policy of the Authority.

MPA welcomes comments on its occasional papers from public participation practitioners and others with a practical or theoretical interest in community engagement, public participation or local governance.

Occasional paper 1: The Triangle of Engagement

November 2005

The triangle of engagement: An unusual way of looking at the usual suspects [PDF document]

The first paper in this series stands on its head the conventional way of thinking about “the usual suspects”, who often seem to make up the majority of the audience at public participation and community engagement events. Far from dismissing them as unrepresentative nuisances, the paper argues, they should be cherished because of their commitment and willingness to devote many unpaid hours to engaging with public authorities. Practitioners and policy makers should recognise the importance of “capacity to engage”, and not just “representativeness”.

The ‘Triangle’ of the title refers to a new model of community engagement, which postulates that the more public agencies demand by way of commitment to the engagement process the fewer people there are who are capable of supplying it.

The author of this paper is Dr John May, consultant to the Community Engagement Unit of the Metropolitan Police Authority, and Visiting Senior Lecturer, Middlesex University Business School.