Significance and Engagement Policy
Consultation has concluded
Tell us how you want Greater Wellington to engage with you on important decisions, and what you think of the changes to our Significance and Engagement policy!
Complete the 5-minute survey now
Register for an online discussion with your Councillors
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Read about the changes to the Policy
What is the Significance and Engagement policy?
Council is responsible for making decisions on behalf of the Region, and for engaging with the community on significant decisions.
The role of the Significance and Engagement Policy is to set out Council’s general approach to determining the significance of proposals and decisions in relation to issues, assets, and other matters.
The level of significance of decisions guides when and how Council will engage with the community:
‘When’: which proposals and decisions the Council will engage with the community on | ‘How’: The method and level of engagement Council will use to engage with the community |
The full draft Significance and Engagement policy can be found here
Why are we reviewing our Significance and Engagement policy?
The Significance and Engagement Policy is a supporting policy of the Long Term Plan so it should be regularly reviewed. The last time our policy updated was in 2015, alongside the development of the 2015-25 Long Term Plan.
Greater Wellington’s operating environment has changed significantly since the last review in 2015: how we engage with communities has changed, the economic environment has changed, and we have progressed our partnership with mana whenua and engagement with mātāwaka.
We also know community expectation of engagement has changed, and we want to make sure we meet these expectations.
Tell us what you think!
We want to know what the best way is to engage with you so that going forward we can reach out to the community and get feedback in the most effective and meaningful way.
We also want to know what you think of the proposed changes in the draft policy.
You can provide feedback on Have Your Say from 3 April 2023 to 26 April 2023 (we have extended this from the original end date of 23 April).
You can give you feedback by:
- Completing this 5 minute survey
- Registering for an online discussion with your Councillors below
Online discussion with Councillors
Come along and have a kōrero with your Councillors at our two online discussions!
- Wednesday 3 May @ 12:00 - 1:00pm
- Thursday 4 May @ 6:30pm - 7:30pm
Register for one of these sessions here Online Discussion Forum with Greater Wellington Councillors - Virtual - Eventfinda
or by emailing us at corporate.planning@gw.govt.nz
The topics of the online discussions will be:
- The Significance and Engagement Policy review
- The proposed Annual Plan 2023/24 (you can give your feedback on this here)
Discussions between community and Councillors will be facilitated by Council officers. If there is a large turnout breakout rooms will be used to ensure everyone gets to have their say. Within the breakout rooms everyone will have 5 minutes to give their opinion, and then the floor will be open for general discussion for the remaining time.
Ground rules will be set at the beginning of the online discussion to ensure that the kōrero is respectful and constructive. There is zero tolerance for inappropriate behaviour in the discussions.
What will happen with the information you share?
Your submissions will be summarised anonymously at the end of every week of the engagement for Councillors to review. A full anonymous summary of all submissions will be provided to Council for the deliberations process.
Council will use this information to advise the adoption of the final Significance and Engagement policy in June.
For more information, please see the privacy statement here.
What happens after the consultation process?
- May: Council will deliberate on the submissions made by the community and make changes to the proposed Significance and Engagement policy
- June: Council will adopt the final Significance and Engagement policy
We will post our final Significance and Engagement policy on the Greater Wellington website in July after it has been adopted by Council.
