Local Authorities: Tackling engagement challenges together

The challenge
Camden Council is one of London’s 33 boroughs. It has been granted Beacon Status for its positive engagement of older people. Camden wanted a way of sharing of their expertise with other Local Authorities to help them to engage specific groups in their boroughs, for the benefit of all.

Camden asked Engine to run a series of workshops with a diverse group of practitioners from across the country called the Beacon Learning Network. The workshops focused on face-to-face knowledge transfer based on ‘learning through doing’ to help inspire the attendees. Engine also supervised the co-creation of a number of tools for the participants to use and take with them.

Despite individual concerns and priorities and the current political and economic climate, our work supported the use of existing knowledge and assets to the best effect. The creation of takeaway and reusable tools also helped each Local Authority to meet the directives of the UK’s coalition by putting more initiative and responsibility in the hands of local rather than central Government.

The approach
Over three workshops, more than twenty Local Authorities and their partners went through structured exercises to reflect on their own experiences of engaging and designing for and with older people, to share experiences with others, and to build a set of new tools and methods to enable the transfer of these insights and other examples of best practice.

In between the workshops, Camden Council populated and ran a blog with information about the work so far. This served to provide information for anyone that had missed a session, kept the work fresh in peoples minds, encouraged feedback and reviews and encouraged ways of sharing information.

Workshop participants co-creating ways of transfering knowledge

The result
Beyond simply sharing knowledge, the workshops were aimed at promoting knowledge transfer, with the co-creation of reusable tools. Some participants already started using the tools before they were finished.

An example of one of the tools developed was a Capability Map on which the strengths and weaknesses of individual organisations were mapped. This helps to identify priority areas for learning and focuses conversations between different organisations to work together productively.

Example of one of the tools and step-by-step walkthrough

In addition to the tools, Engine produced two publications in collaboration with Camden Council and the workshop participants: a compilation of the tools developed in the workshops, and a ‘step-by-step’ guide to apply the workshop process to new engagement problems.

The project was incredibly positive in the demonstration of sharing experiences across Local Authorities, rather than pursuing isolated research. By empowering Local Authorities with new ways of engaging and supporting citizens in their own community, a path has been opened for future communications between Councils and their partners.