The South Australian Department for Families and Communities (DFC) has today launched its new Consultation Finder, opening up consultation information online and making it easier for citizens to find out about ways to get involved in government decision-making.
The Department wanted to take advantage of an online system’s ability to coordinate all consultation activity across their department and to better promote this activity to the public.
To achieve their objectives, DFC opted to work with UK online consultation specialists Delib, delivering a custom version of their Citizen Space platform.
DFC were particularly interested in Citizen Space because of its open source nature, and the system’s accompanying flexibility. While the suite’s Consultation Finder module provided most of the core functionality off-the-shelf, DFC also specified some customisations to tailor the tool for their situation. The site’s design was modified to match existing branding and navigation, fitting seamlessly within the Department’s main website, and the code was deployed to the Government’s own server.
The finished site has been set live at http://consult.dfc.sa.gov.au/
Fergus Hogarth, Manager at Department for Families and Communities, said ‘It is important that we make it easy for the community to find and participate in our consultations, including face to face and online – the Consultation Finder achieves this and is also simple to navigate and use. The Consultation Finder also enables good community engagement practice, for example the ‘We Asked, You Said, We Did’ feature promotes transparency by providing a simple way to respond to people who took the time and effort to share their views with the Department’
Michaela Dennis, Consultant at Delib, said ‘ We are really excited that Citizen Space is being used outside the UK, and it just goes to show that improving government through online methods is now an important international issue. We are looking forward to the platform being used all over the world.’
