PRODUCT MANAGEMENT

STAKEHOLDER MAAGEMENT

Stakeholder

Understanding your Stakeholders

The key to a successful stakeholder engagement or public consultation program is to start with
a good understanding of your stakeholders. And make sure you are testing and refining that
understanding throughout the process.

What other information can you collect on stakeholders that will help you understand their
needs, priorities, preferences and concerns? Consider:
o Demographic data – make sure you are engaging with a broad cross-section of the
community and stakeholder groups
o Social networks – focus on the important, yet often undocumented, social connections
between stakeholders
Stakeholder Mapping (see section below)
Salience model – examine the power, urgency (need for immediate action) and legitimacy
(appropriate stakeholders) and the interaction or groups of stakeholders this creates

Identify Stakeholder expectations and compare them with the scope and expectations of the
project or organisation for which you are running the engagement program. Is there a gap or
mismatch of expectations and how will these be managed? Also consider:
o What information do they want from you, how often, and in what format/channel?
What financial/social/emotional interest do they have in the outcome of your work? Is it
positive or negative?
What are the key motivations that will drive their perceptions of your project or organisation
and their interactions with you?
What is their current opinion of your organisation and project? Is it based on good
information?
Who influences their opinions, and who they influence in turn?

Stakeholder Management
Stakeholder management is the process by which you organize, monitor and improve your
relationships with your stakeholders.

It involves systematically identifying stakeholders; analyzing their needs and expectations; and
planning and implementing various tasks to engage with them. A good stakeholder
management process will be the means through which you are able to coordinate your
interactions and assess the status and quality of your relationship with various stakeholders.

The emphasis is placed on creating a stakeholder management plan that maps the level of
interest and influence of stakeholders and list various levels of engagement for the different
groups.

Importance of stakeholder management.

A vital part of running a successful project is to develop and maintain good relationships with
those communities who will be affected and other stakeholders.

Investing time in identifying and prioritising stakeholders and assessing their interests
provides a strong basis from which to build your stakeholder engagement strategy. An in-
depth understanding of your stakeholders supported by a sound engagement plan that is
strategic, clear and prioritised help you develop and maintain relationships with those affected,
mitigate risks, align business goals and eliminate delays.

In these days of increasing legislation around protection of privacy and the right to
information, it is even more critical that an organisation or project has a clearly defined
Stakeholder Management plan and protocols in place. The risks of not taking a systematic,
controlled approach to stakeholder management are high and increasing along with
community expectations.
Benefits of Stakeholder Management

Companies that have grasped the importance of actively developing and sustaining
relationship with the affected communities and other stakeholders are reaping the benefits of
improved risk management, increased stakeholder support, and better outcomes on the ground.

Good stakeholder management also brings in ‘business intelligence’. Understanding

stakeholder concerns and interests can lead to ideas for products or services that will address
stakeholder needs; and allow the company to reduce costs and maximise value.
  Reputation
 Competitive advantage
 Corporate governance
 Risk management
 Social license to operate

How to Create a Stakeholder Management Plan

A Stakeholder Management Plan is a document that outlines appropriate management

strategies to effectively engage stakeholders throughout the lifecycle of the project, based on
the analysis of their needs, interests and potential impact on project success.

Be strategic and clear about whom you are engaging with and why, before jumping in. It not
only helps save time and money, but also helps manage expectations and gain trust.

Questions to be asked before developing the plan:

 What are the strategic reasons for consulting with stakeholders at this stage?
 Who needs to be consulted?
 What are the priority issues (for them and for you)?
 What will be the most effective methods of communicating with stakeholders?
 Who within the company is responsible for what activities?
 Are there any other engagement activities that will occur in the proposed timeframe
(perhaps with other sections of your organisation)?
 Are there opportunities to collaborate to ensure key project messages are consistent and
avoid consultation fatigue?
 How will the results be captured, tracked, reported and disseminated?
 

How to Select the Right Stakeholder Management Software

Trying to decide between a CRM (Customer Relationship Management) product and a SRMS
(Stakeholder Relationship Management System) can be tricky if you haven’t been exposed to
any of these types of software before. You may not be sure if you need a stakeholder database
or what the difference is between the various consultation tools out there. Or perhaps you’re
wondering if you should stick to Excel as it’s worked well for you in the past? How about all
the fancy new products popping up all over the place, focusing on one type of consultation, be
it mapping or online forums, where do they fit in?

The flowchart below can help you navigate through some of the basic considerations in
selecting the right tool for your needs.

A few brief points of explanation:

Qualitative analysis refers to the need to analyse and report on text-rich data such as responses
to open text questions in a survey, or formal submissions
We’ve distinguished between Basic SRMS which don’t offer true qualitative analysis and
more Advanced SRMS that have specific functions and reports for qualitative data
We’ve distinguished between a CRM and SRMS in terms of how well each can track and
analyse the content of interactions with
CRMs versus SRMs
Customer Relationship Management (CRM) Software

CRMs are generally designed around a sales process, which is fundamentally quite different to
an engagement process.

If you want to manage your engagement and understand your stakeholder’s needs, concerns and
feedback, using a CRM is going to make things trickier, if not impossible.

There is a big difference between customers and stakeholders!

For a start, customers are people who receive or consume products and can choose between
different products and organisations. Not people who are affected by, have an interest in, or the
ability to influence a project – i.e. your stakeholders.

It is also important to note that customers generally have to be interested in the product for it to
impact them; whereas stakeholders don’t have to be interested in your project at all. And even if
they are interested, they might not even have a say in the project – a whole new can of worms…

The approach of how you engage and build stakeholder relationships will differ from the process
of engaging with customers.

Have a look at the primary stages of the Sales Process below:

As you can see the sales approach of tracking people through stages in a sales pipeline isn’t the
same as a stakeholder engagement process.
CRM software was developed specifically to cater to the sales steps and is not adept at
conforming to the management of your data.
Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) Software

Stakeholder Relationship Management (SRM) software is designed specifically for community

and stakeholder engagement.

While both a CRM and SRM can track stakeholders and their contact details well, an SRM is
also designed to track and analyse the purpose and content of the engagement with the
stakeholders. A CRM is designed around tracking where a contact is in a sales pipeline. A SRM
is designed around understanding the engagement with the stakeholder – what they are saying to
you, their needs, priorities and concerns.

An SRM like Darzin gives you the organised, segmented, up-to-date list of your stakeholders, as
well as the ‘one source of truth’ visibility of all of the interactions anyone from your team is
having with your stakeholders.

With an SRM you can log essential questions about the stakeholder engagement activities –
Who’s been contacted about a particular issue? Where and when did consultation events take
place? What were the results?

But more importantly, you can commence with qualitative analysis and advanced reporting on
your engagement activities. You’ll always have your finger on the pulse of your stakeholder
relationships and engagement!

The video below gives you a little insight into how Darzin handles some of the core tasks of
Stakeholder Management.
 If you’d like to see more of Darzin or learn about our approach to Stakeholder Management,
please get in touch. We’d be happy to give you a demo of the software, or even just have a chat
about your Stakeholder Management issues.

Stakeholder Mapping
Stakeholder Analysis involves four key steps:

1. Identify your stakeholders

2. Analyse their needs, interests and preferences
3. Map (visualize) the relationship to other stakeholders and key criteria
4. Strategize how you will prioritize and approach either individual, organisation or group
of stakeholders.

“Stakeholder Mapping” is a term often used to describe the process of assigning values that
shape priorities and strategies for each stakeholder based on their ranking against some set
criteria. Sometimes stakeholders are simply assigned a rank against each criteria. Often they are
plotted on a matrix to provide a visual depiction of the range of stakeholders in your program.

There are a number of standard frameworks used for Stakeholder Mapping. It is a part of
Stakeholder Analysis that many organisations do, particularly for their strategic stakeholders.

Stakeholder Mapping usually involves rating a stakeholder on the following criteria:

 Influence
 Interest
 Impact
Most people use a High-Medium-Low ranking or a 1-5 rating system for each of these criteria.
Stakeholders are then plotted on a grid of Influence/Interest or Influence/Impact.
 After you have ranked your stakeholders or plotted them on these matrices, you need to consider
how this information will influence your engagement plan and strategy.

Another popular model for Stakeholder Mapping – the Power/Urgency/ Legitimacy model from
Mitchell, Agle and Wood is used to anticipate stakeholders behaviour.

 Power – to influence the organisation

 Legitimacy – of the relationship and actions with the organization in terms of desirability,
properness or appropriateness.
 Urgency – of the requirements being set for the organisation. In terms of criticality, time-
sensitivity for the stakeholder

Stakeholders that fit into area 1, 2 or 3 are called Latent Stakeholders. With only one of the three
characteristics they are considered less critical for success. Stakeholders in areas 4,5 or 6 are
called Expectant Stakeholders. These stakeholders often have a direct financial stake or impact
from your project. The stakeholders that have all three characteristics in area 7 are called
Definitive Stakeholders and would generally take top priority.

We’re not advocating that you follow any of these models in a prescriptive fashion. For example
a “latent” stakeholder could easily derail your project if they get enough traction on social media
for example. The power-influence relationships are shifting, particularly with the easy access to
social media, the higher community expectations and risk-averse nature of governments when it
comes to political damage. Instead we see them as a useful way to understand your stakeholders
and ensure that your strategy and engagement plan adequately caters to all stakeholders’ needs.
 At Darzin, we take a multi-dimensional approach to Stakeholder Mapping. Some of the ‘industry
standard’ grids are a bit dated and don’t take into account shifting power relationships and
stakeholder expectations. Our approach to stakeholder mapping includes:

 Segmentation based on interest and function

 Mapping connection between stakeholders
 Custom fields to track additional information such as demographics
 Mapping Stakeholders on a scale from very low to very high for the criteria of:
o Influence – the level of influence a stakeholder has over the project
o Interest – the level of interest a stakeholder has on the project
o Impact – the level of impact the stakeholder has on the project

Depending on how relevant these mapping fields are for your organisation, they can also be used
to measure the level of influence, interest and impact your project has on the stakeholder.

 Criticality – how important is it to engage with this stakeholder?

 Position – what is their current sentiment towards your project?
 Effort – how much time and energy are you expending to engage with the stakeholder?

Importantly, we also track how these stakeholder mapping values change over time.

If you’d like to know more about the Darzin approach to Stakeholder Mapping, get in touch with
one of our team.

Best Practice Stakeholder Management

Having clear, well documented processes for your Stakeholder Management are getting more
important with increasing legislation and concerns around privacy and use of personal data.

Some key priciples of best practice Stakeholder Management include:

 Compliance – if you are working in or providing services to the European Union and the United
Kingdom you must take particular note of the GDPR requirements that came into play in May
2018. Most other countries have increasingly tightened requirements for:
o What data you can legitimately collect and store
o How you seek permission for collecting that data
o How you use that data – is it for a legitimate purpose and consistent with the reasons you gave
for collecting the data
o Where you store that data (and where the team accessing your data for providing support
services is located)
o What security measures you have in place to protect that data
 o Making it easy for the public to request a copy of the data you store on them, and providing it
in a machine-readable format.

 Comprehensive – ensure that your stakeholder lists adequately represent the whole range of
stakeholders. Your needs assessments and engagement programs are all dependent on you
having up-to-date and representative stakeholder lists.
 Transparency – what you are collecting, why, and what you will use the data for
 Collect the right information at the right level of detail
 Honest about purpose – seek permission to collect information (including when you are tracking
social media)
 Segment into groups by interest, needs, stakeholder mapping fields of influence, interest, impact
 Use segmented stakeholder lists to provide a more relevant ‘customer experience’ for your
stakeholders.
 Evaluate frequently
 Audit your data management processes frequently
 Seek feedback
 Fair metrics

Easy Ways to Improve Your Stakeholder

Management
Shared stakeholder lists
Getting a shared, up-to-date contact list that can be worked on by multiple people simultaneously
is often a big win for an organisation that has been managing their stakeholder lists in multiple
spreadsheets. Just knowing that you have access to the ‘latest’ and most up-to-date list can be a
huge time saver. (Be aware of privacy and other legislation around the use of personal
information – make sure you are still compliant with the legislation in your country).

Collect the right information right from the start

 If you have a sign-up form on your website for example, make sure you collect all the fields that
you have decided are important to track. This will save you time, and also give you much richer
information on a stakeholder, than just their name and email address. Of course you do need to
balance out having an onerously long form to fill out vs making it quick and easy for people to
sign up.

Regular maintenance
Does your stakeholder management software make it easy for you to ‘clean’ up your data? Look
for duplicate stakeholder records for example and merge them.

Better yet, if your system allows for sophisticated sharing of stakeholders across projects, you
should have much cleaner, easier-to-manage stakeholder lists.
Stakeholder analysis
One way to vastly improve your engagement activities is to group and analyze your stakeholders
to examine key factors including demographics, level of relevance, influence, impact and
interest.

Through stakeholder mapping and categorisation, you will be able to gain a good understanding
of your stakeholders and will be able to gauge your engagement and ensure you are targeting
people who are relevant, influential, impactful or of interest to your project.

Influence, Interest and/or Impact

Establishing a level of interest, influence and/or impact will enable you to interact more
efficiently with a particular stakeholder.

To measure the possible influence of your stakeholders, identify their level on a scale from high,
medium to low:

 High: Stakeholder with strong ability to impact your project.

 Medium: Stakeholder with a significant interest in, but a lower level of power to affect the
project.
 Low: Stakeholder with little ability to affect the project.

Grievance Management
A well-functioning grievance mechanism provides a transparent, credible, and fair process to all
parties. It enhances outcomes and gives people the satisfaction that their complaints have been
heard, even if the outcome is less than optimal.

A good complaint handling process helps build trust as part of the broader community relations
activities and contributes to the overall success of the company’s social performance.
Get inspired

When creating your stakeholder management plan and deciding on what activities you should
include, think outside the box — and consider new, tech-enabled methods that may not have
been previously available. Get inspired by looking at our latest case studies or check out some
ideas on how to create a One-Page Stakeholder Plan in Simply Stakeholders’ Latest eBook

Introducing Stakeholder
Management
New to stakeholder management and not sure where to start? Or perhaps stakeholder
management has been part of your role or business for some time now, but you’d like to feel
more confident with it?

Let’s go through some stakeholder management basics. We’ll define stakeholder management,
unpack why it’s worth doing, and share a simple stakeholder management process that works for
nearly any team or project.

What is Stakeholder Management?

Stakeholders are the people or groups that are involved in or affected by an organization,
project or action.

This might include members of the public, government or regulatory bodies, businesses,
suppliers, employees, shareholders, government bodies, and even customers.

Stakeholder management means identifying your stakeholders, seeking to understand

them, strategically interacting with them, and tracking those interactions.

Who Does Stakeholder Management?

Stakeholder management is an important activity for most organizations and projects. It’s a key
part of many job descriptions, including leadership, communication and project management
roles.
But the bigger the project and the higher the stakes, the more critical this function becomes.
You’ll usually find dedicated stakeholder management teams in energy, resources and mining,
not for profit organizations, health, infrastructure, and government organizations.

Why Do Stakeholder Management?

Stakeholder management can help you understand how people are impacted by a project, what
influence they have, and what their sentiments and key concerns or needs are towards it. This can
help you identify potential risks and opportunities ahead of time so that you can manage them
and reduce negative impacts.

But the stakeholder management process is about

more than getting your project to the finish line.

Managing your stakeholders can help you:

 Build mutual understanding

 Strengthen relationships
 Get more input and insights
 Reduce risks, remove roadblocks and reduce delays
 Achieve more sustainable outcomes
 Improve your reputation
 Gain a social license to operate
 Fulfil legal obligations

Gaining extra perspectives can help reveal new

information, influence the project, and create better
outcomes for more people.
In turn, this may help some stakeholders feel more positively towards your organization — and
more open to your project and the changes it may bring.

Stakeholder Management Vs Engagement,

Consultation & Other Terms
The field of stakeholder management is quite broad. You may also come across some other terms
that are used to describe different aspects of or approaches to stakeholder management,
including:

 Stakeholder engagement – This focuses on building relationships with stakeholders (which

include individuals and organizations)
 Community engagement – This focuses on building stronger relationships with communities
(defined by location, affiliation, interest or something else)
 Public participation – The goal is to get the public actively involved in making decisions or
finding solutions
 Public consultation – The goal is to get input from the public on specific issues, at any stage of
the project
 Citizen engagement – The focus here is on getting the public engaged in decisions and activities
of government

Many of these terms are used interchangeably and may have slightly different meanings in
different parts of the world. However, they all fall within stakeholder management.

5 Steps to Managing Stakeholders

So, how do you actually do stakeholder management?

The steps you’ll need to follow will depend on the scale and complexity of what you’re doing.
But for most projects, you’ll need to work through the following stakeholder management
process.

1. Stakeholder Identification
Start by brainstorming who your stakeholders are. Prepare a list that includes any groups or
individuals who might be impacted by or have an impact on the project; or who you have a
statutory requirement to consult.

2. Stakeholder Analysis
You might analyze your stakeholders based on:

 Sentiment – How might each stakeholder or group might feel about the project (positive,
negative or neutral)?
 Influence – How much of an influence could each stakeholder or group have on the project?
 Impact – How much of an impact could the project have on each stakeholder or group?
 Interest – What is their level of interest in this project or work?
 Concerns – What are their top needs and priorities?
 Expectations – How involved would they expect to be? And what kind of consultation or
engagement process might they expect from you?
Mapping this information to each stakeholder in your list will help you identify themes and
priority areas to address in your stakeholder management plan.

Want to learn more about stakeholder mapping? – check out this webinar on Stakeholder
Mapping Tips

3. Stakeholder Management Plan

Following your stakeholder analysis, you can determine what approach you’ll need to take with
each stakeholder or group. This may include:

 How and when you plan to engage with them

 What you need their input on
 What messages you need to communicate with them

You’ll also need to outline any resources you need, what outcomes you’d like to see, and how
you’ll evaluate your plan’s success.

Use your written plan to guide your team and ensure that any decision-makers understand the
stakeholder management process and how it can benefit the project.

4. Feedback, Participation & Communication

Now it’s time to put your plan into action, communicating with your stakeholders and giving
them opportunities to provide feedback and participate.

Good administrative practices are critical here. Keep a history of each stakeholder interaction
(online and in-person) in one place so that you and your team can build on conversations,
strengthen relationships, and engage with individuals in a more meaningful way.

5. Analyze & Reflect

As you receive input from stakeholders, you’ll need to collate the data and present
recommendations, ensuring that they form a key part of the decision making process. You’ll also
need to keep stakeholders informed about the project and how their feedback is being used to
influence decisions.

Throughout the project, reflect on whether your plan is working and whether you’re achieving
the outcomes you had in mind.

Want to learn more about Darzin’s stakeholder management reports? Book a demo here
Stakeholder Management Examples
Looking for some stakeholder management inspiration? The following examples show how you
can apply stakeholder management strategies across different projects, plus different ways to
analyze, engage with and track your stakeholders.

Rail Projects Victoria – Metro Tunnel

The Metro Tunnel in Melbourne is a $10.9 billion project that will kickstart the transformation of
About the project international-style metro system. When it opens (ETA 2025), it will create a new end-to-end line
south east to Sunbury in the west, impacting a large number of workers, residents and students.

Community Reference Groups (CRGs) were one of the main stakeholder management strategies
(RPV). CRGs were established in a number of precincts along the Metro Tunnel route.

These CRGs provided forums for local community and stakeholder engagement during th
by:
Stakeholder
management
 Establishing an effective forum for consultation and information sharing
strategies  Enabling two-way conversation between RPV, its contractors and the community
 Encouraging a broad range of representatives to participate in delivery of the project
 Providing a local perspective on the project, particularly in relation to local issues
 Assisting with resolving community concerns where possible

Take a look at our Metro Tunnel case study.

RPS Ireland Stakeholder Management

Founded in 1970, RPS is a leading global professional services firm that works across six sectors: p
About the company resources, defence and government services. Their focus is on defining, designing and managing
solving problems that matter to a complex, urbanising and resource-scarce world.

Stakeholder As a company RPS implements a number of strategies to assist their clients to manage and engag
management
strategies  Using electronic shareholder communication forms
 Annual and half-year reports
 Email alerts
  Regulatory newsletters
 Virtual capital market events

INPEX Ichthys Development

Following a number of successful joint ventures in the Australian energy sector, global energy co
project operator at Ichthys, and commenced production in mid-2018.
About the project
Located around 220 km offshore Western Australia and 820 km southwest of Darwin, Ich
pipeline, and onshore development and production. It’s expected to reach peaks of 8.9 mil
million tonnes of LPG per year and 100,000+ barrels of condensate per day.

INPEX’s stakeholder management methods are primarily focused on collaboration and shared tw

 Business contractors
 Local industry associations
 Government authorities
Stakeholder  Residents
management  Community partners
strategies  Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples

Each of their enquiries from community members are documented using stakeholder man
enquiries received in 2021. They work with stakeholders to address feedback promptly an

Take a look at our case study on INPEX’s Ichthys LNG Project.

Learn More About Stakeholder Management

Enjoyed this introduction to stakeholder management but want to dive deeper? These resources
will build on what you’ve learned with additional strategies, insights and tips:

 The Ultimate Guide to Stakeholder Management [Article]

 Why Stakeholder Engagement Matters [eBook]
 Stakeholder Management Plan in Five Steps [Article]
 How to Manage Stakeholder Expectations [Article]
Use Darzin for Effective Stakeholder
Management
Ready to apply some of the strategies covered here?

Darzin’s stakeholder management tools can help you cover more ground at every phase of the
project — and ensure better visibility for your whole team.

Features include:

 Interaction tracking – Complete history of interactions with stakeholders, all in the one place.
See who has been speaking to the stakeholder, and what was discussed.
 Stakeholder Mapping – Segment your stakeholders based on their level of influence, interest
and impact; how critical they are to your project as well as their current position or sentiment.
Use custom fields or tags to track the info that matters to your work.
 Analysis – Use built-in surveys and qualitative analysis to better understand issues, needs and
concerns of stakeholders. Analyse the effectiveness of your stakeholder engagement activities.
 Activity scheduling– Plan meetings and events via a shared calendar.
 Tasks & Complaints – Stay on top of follow-up tasks with integrated communication, response
time tracking and automatic notifications in visual kanban style task boards

Read more about how Darzin can support your stakeholder management processes.

Book a demo

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Public Consultation
Guide
From Planning to
Implementation
Home

Public Consultation Guide

The ultimate guide to public consultation:

What it is, why do it, and how to do it well
Public Consultation is a huge topic so we’ve broken it down to several sections for you, starting
with exactly what is public consultation, when it is required, the benefits of public consultation
when it’s done right, and the tools you need to achieve successful consultation processes.

Contents
1. What is Public Consultation?
2. Why is Public Consultation Important?

3. When is Public Consultation Required?

4. Public Consultation and Participation in EIA

5. How to Conduct Public Consultation

6. How to Create a Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan

7. Public Consultation Management Systems

8. Guides for Successful Public Consultation

9. Get in touch

1
What is Public Consultation?
Public consultation is a process that involves the public in providing their views and feedback on
a proposal to consider in the decision-making.

Underpinning effective consultation are two key assumptions. Firstly, that the public are
perfectly capable of making sense of complex issues. Secondly, those decision-makers are not
necessarily experts on the issues for which they are deciding or debating. Evidence suggests that
this holds true for the vast majority of cases.

Over the last decade, approaches to public consultation have ranged from short-term programs to
meet the regulatory requirements to a longer-term focus on relationship building and proactive
risk management. Today, the terms Public Consultation and Stakeholder Engagement are
emerging as inclusive and continuous dialogue between a company (or decision-maker) and the
public (or stakeholders) that encompasses a range of activities and approaches and spans the
entire life of the project.

Who is the public?

The public, often referred to as stakeholders, are individuals and organizations that are affected
directly or indirectly by a project or a decision, as well as those who have the ability to influence
the decision, both positively and negatively. They can also be people who simply have an
interest in the project.

Policy makers and project proponents will often need to strike a balance between consulting
those who are significantly affected by a proposal and consulting a wider group of people who
will not be directly affected, but who will have a reasonable fear that they might be, or will have
strong feelings about an issue. The matter of defining the ‘public concerned’ for a consultation
is highly fractious as it is often a factor of the available resources.
 Questions that help identify the “public” or “stakeholders”:

 Who is affected by this decision? – For example, the local community, neighbours, landowners, local
businesses.
 Who may have influence on the decision? – For example, the centre and local government
departments, religious leaders, politicians.
 Who knows about the subject? – for example, the academic community, NGOs
 Who has an interest in the subject? – For example, community groups, groups with special interests.

2
Why is Public Consultation Important?
“Good consultation costs money but poor consultation can
cost a lot more”

Successful public consultation means different things to different individuals and organisations.
For some, it means improving their brand image, increased stakeholder support and reduced
external risks. For others, it is about meeting regulatory or lender requirements, or gaining broad
community support to obtain ‘social license to operate’. Although success may look a little
different for companies and organisations operating in different market sectors, most of them
agree that high quality stakeholder management and engagement helps achieve better project
outcomes.
Benefits of public consultation include:

 It acknowledges the desire for humans to have a say in decisions that affect their lives. More
importantly, it provides an opportunity for the affected people (and interested parties) to have a say in
decisions that affect their lives.
 It provides the decision makers a better understanding of the stakeholders’ values, interests, issues, and
concerns about the proposal to incorporate into decisions and ultimately empowers them to make
better decisions.
 It facilitates understanding on the proposal (for the public), and problems and opportunities (for the
Consultor).
 It generates new ideas to be considered and evaluated throughout the development.
 It encourages the public to provide meaningful input into the decision-making process.
 It helps create a strong foundation for long-lasting and trustful relationships between the project and
the stakeholders.
 It helps organisations enhance risk management and have better project outcomes.
 It informs the public and helps them accept any resulting changes.
 3
When is Public Consultation Required?
Public consultation is oriented towards making decisions
For most sectors, public or private, public consultation is generally required during the planning
phase.

For governments, consultation can be applied to a range of topics such as draft legislation and
rules, budgets, policy development and spatial planning.

In the case of the European Commission, stakeholder consultations are carried out to support the
preparation of:

 Policy communications/white papers

 Legislative proposals
 Spending programmes
 Delegated acts and implementing acts with important impacts, i.e. subject to an impact assessment
 Evaluations of existing policies or programmes.

In the United Kingdom there is only voluntary, blanket guidance for government departments
and other public bodies for engaging stakeholders when developing policy or legislation.
However, there are legal duties for certain government bodies to consult such as the NHS Act
2006 Section 14Z2 for health commissioning groups and the Planning Act 2008, which requires
pre-application consultation on nationally significant infrastructure projects.
Specific legal obligations may also be straddled by a number of non-specific statutory
requirements such as:

 The need to carry out environmental impact assessments

 The need to carry out equality assessments
 Freedom of Information and Data Protection Laws.

There are different public consultation and disclosure standards set by the regulators and
borrowers for the private sectors. And the consultation requirements can depend on the level of
anticipated social and environmental risks and impacts a project is likely to create. For example,
the Equator banks (borrowers) require projects with potential significant adverse impacts in non-
OECD countries to undertake vigorous consultation and disclosure activities throughout the
project’s lifecycle to the bank’s satisfaction that the project has adequately incorporated affected
communities’ concerns.

It is important to note that when consultation activities are driven by rules and requirements, the
consultation rarely extends beyond the planning phase and is seldom integrated into the core
business activities. Over the last decade, approaches to public consultation have chance from
short-term means of meeting the regulatory requirements to a longer-term focusing on
relationship building and proactive risk management.

4
Public Consultation and Participation in EIA
An Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) or Environmental and Social Impact Assessment
(ESIA/ SEIA) is a process of identifying environmental and social risks and impacts of a
project. The assessment follows applicable laws and regulations of the jurisdictions in which the
project operates.

Not all projects require an EIA as part of project planning and approval. An EIA is more likely
necessary for a large-scale project with diverse and significant environmental and social impacts.
Smaller-scale projects (definition varied in different countries) may find that they are exempt
from regulatory requirements for an EIA.

The most intense period of planned public participation will likely take place during the
feasibility and EIA process, which will help determine whether or not to proceed (by project
proponent, sponsors and the regulator) with the new project. Most information about stakeholder
concerns, issues, and opportunities are often collected from targeted consultations directly
related to the EIA studies.

A typical public consultation and disclosure program for EIA

The flowchart on the right shows a typical decision process for an EIA and corresponding public
disclosure and consultation program. Note that while ‘Scoping’ exercise is mandatory in many
jurisdictions (such as in the USA and Canada), it is a voluntary step in the EIA process in many
countries, Australia included. Nonetheless, best practice guidelines suggest that EIA scoping is
an important step to help identify more accurately the full range of potential impacts from a
project.
 Key components for EIA consultation and good practice tips

Read More

5
How to Conduct Public Consultation
There is no one right way of undertaking public consultation
The nature, scale and frequency of consultation should be relative to the level of risks and
potential impacts the proposal is likely to create.

Ideally a good public consultation process will be:

 Targeted at those who most likely to be affected by the project

 Early enough to scope key issues and have an effect on the project decisions
 Informed, meaningful – disclose relevant project information in an understandable format and the
techniques are appropriate to the local culture and customs
 Two-way so that both sides have opportunities to exchange information, listen, ask questions, and have
their issues addressed
 Inclusive of gender
 Localised to reflect the local timeframes, context, decision making process and languages
 Free from manipulation and coercion
 Documented to keep track of who has been consulted and key issues raised
 Report back to stakeholders in a timely manner on consultation outcomes and next steps
 Ongoing throughout the project life

To learn more about what a good public consultation process looks like, read our blog post
on Key Principles of Good Public Consultation

How to Identify the right level of public consultation

Not all public participation is the same; there are numerous levels at which you might wish to
engage with the public based on the project, the stakeholders, and the decisions to be made.

To identify the appropriate level of public participation for your project, the ultimate question to
answer is:

How much potential influence on the decision or action are you willing to provide to the
public?
 The answer to this question is critical to the design and ultimate success of your public
participation program.

The International Association for Public Participation (IAP2)’s Public Participation Spectrum is
a useful guide in helping organisations determine which approach and techniques are most
suitable for their projects. Small projects with minimum impact may only require engagement at
the “inform” level while projects with high potential significant adverse impacts may adopt a
more sophisticated approach to effectively reach the engagement goals.

To learn more about what a good public consultation process looks like, read our blog post
on Key Principles of Good Public Consultation

6
How to Create a Public Consultation and
Disclosure Plan
The purpose of a Public Consultation and Disclosure Plan (PCDP) is to describe a company’s
strategy and program for engaging with the stakeholders, whether it is for a single project, a
range of operations or for the entire organisation. It is a process that provides opportunities for
stakeholders to express their issues and concerns about the proposal, and allows the company to
consider and respond to them. The goal is to ensure timely provision of relevant and
understandable project information and encourage the public to provide meaningful input into
the decision-making process for better project outcomes.

Click here to see an example framework for a PCPD

Public Consultation vs Public Participation

In general, public participation is another term that is used for public consultation (and
stakeholder engagement). Broadly, both these terms refer to a process of involving the public
(stakeholders) in providing their views and feedback on a proposal to consider in the decision-
making.
Although most people use these terms to describe the same process, some may say that
‘consultation’ and ‘participation’ are two forms of interaction with interested members of the
public. In detail:

 Consultation means actively seeking the opinions of interested and affected groups. It is a two-way flow
of information, which may occur at any stage of a project development. It may be a one-stage process
or, as it is increasingly the case, a continuing dialogue.
 Participation means the active involvement of interest groups in the formulation of decisions or
solutions. On the IAP2 Spectrum of Public Participation the ‘participation’ level implies a higher level of
public impact on decisions than the ‘consultation’ level.
 Even for people who consider ‘consultation’ and ‘participation’ as separate forms of interaction
with stakeholders, most agree that these forms of interaction are often mingled with public
consultation programs, complementing and overlapping each other.

7
Public Consultation Management Systems
Having a consultation ‘log’ helps answer basic (but important) questions about the stakeholder
engagement activities: Who has been consulted about a particular issue? Where and when did
consultation or engagement activities take place? What were the results? More importantly, did
the team make any commitments? Have they been followed up on?

The benefits of having a public consultation system are many. It may be part of the regulatory or
lending requirements, or an effective tool to demonstrate that the company listens to the
stakeholders and incorporates their feedback in the project outcomes. Some other advantages of
having a stakeholder management system are:

 Increase transparency on your stakeholder engagement activities

 Better manage stakeholder expectations by ensuring consistency in key messages
 Help make sure commitments and promises are followed up in a timely manner
 Better share stakeholder information as well as knowledge about stakeholders across the company
 Help make informed and timely decisions on matters that are important to stakeholders that would
support the social license to operate
 Help companies avoid and manage legal disputes by providing accurate, reliable records of consultation.

How sophisticated the documentation system depends on the scale and nature of your project. It
can range from a simple excel spreadsheet, an access database, to a more sophisticated
stakeholder engagement software tailored for your needs. See below for some advice on how to
select the right system for your needs.

How to select the right public consultation database

When it comes to a time where you need a stakeholder database or consultation software, trying
to decide what stakeholder management database to employ can be hard and a little confusing.
You want something that works best for your current needs but is also easy to be expanded/
downgraded in the future. We’ve put together a simple flowchart to help you navigate through
some of the basic considerations.
8
Guides for Successful Public Consultation
Here are some free e-books that provide a lot of information and practical advice on various
aspects of planning, managing and evaluating consultation programs.

A step-by-step guide to developing a successful consultation

program
Get the free guide here
Details of a simple yet robust evaluation process for public
consultation programs
Get the free guide here
Having Trouble Keeping People Engaged?

No complaints – successful or suspicious?

Consultation Management for the Mega Metro Tunnel

5 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Consultation Data

Community engagement: why qualifications and experience
matter

Having Trouble Keeping People Engaged?

No complaints – successful or suspicious?

Consultation Management for the Mega Metro Tunnel

5 Ways to Increase the Value of Your Consultation Data

Community engagement: why qualifications and experience

matter
Having Trouble Keeping People Engaged?

9
Get in touch
We’re always happy to share our knowledge and expertise. Get in touch and let us know what
you think of the resources on this page. If you are interested in some advice, having us create
more useful resources, or to find out more about the terrific software we have created for public
consultation, please get in touch!

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