National Standards of Community Engagement

National Standards of Community Engagement

The National Standards is a tool that can be used to develop and support better working relationships between communities and agencies delivering public services. The standards are 10 statements, which can been used to increase quality of engagement, and have been developed with the involvement of over 500 community and agency representatives across Scotland, using the principles of good practice.

They aim to provide measurable performance statements that can be used by everyone for the planning, assessment, monitoring and evaluation of work involving community engagement. They can also be used to formulate ‘ground rules’ for engagement.

The standards:

  1. The Involvement Standard
    We will identify and involve the people and organisations who have an interest in the focus of the engagement
  2. The Support Standard
    We will identify and overcome any barriers to involvement
  3. The Planning Standard
    We will gather evidence of the needs and available resources and use this evidence to agree the purpose, scope and timescale of the engagement and the actions to be taken
  4. The Methods Standard
    We will agree and use methods of engagement that are fit for purpose
  5. The Working Together Standard
    We will agree and use clear procedures that enable the participants to work with one another effectively and efficiently
  6. The Sharing Information Standard
    We will ensure that necessary information is communicated between the participants
  7. The Working with Others Standard
    We will work effectively with others with an interest in the engagement
  8. The Improvement Standard
    We will develop actively the skills, knowledge and confidence of all the participants
  9. The Feedback Standard
    We will feed back the results of the engagement to the wider community and agencies affected
  10. The Monitoring and Evaluation Standard
    We will monitor and evaluate whether the engagement achieves its purposes and meets the national standards for community engagement

If you decide to use the National Standards as a guide to your group’s community engagement, it is important to keep it as simple as possible. You don’t need to implement all 10 standards at once, just focus on 2 or 3 initially. Not all the standards are applicable to every piece of work, but try to build the relevant standards into the process of engagement.

Communities Scotland has published a ‘how to’ guide on community engagement on their website at http://www.communitiesscotland.gov.uk/

This guide sets out a range of techniques for community engagement, contains tools to support use of the standards and also highlights other helpful publications.