APS Engage: Public engagement and participation support

We help public servants engage with people to deliver better policy, programs and services.

Our APS Engage team:

• advises and coaches you to build confidence and capability to engage people
• provides tools and resources to better use engagement in your day-to-day work
• trains you to help get the maximum value from engagement activities

We also collaborate with like-minded nations across the world to develop and implement solutions that address government public participation and engagement challenges. This is part of the Open government partnership where Australia is a member state.

Engagement tools and resources

You can use our tools to design and deliver engagement activities. They will help you earn trust, and address specific needs and challenges.

Framework for engagement and participation

The APS framework for engagement and participation underpins the Australian public service’s approach to engagement.

The framework helps you engage better by establishing guiding principles and standards. There are 4 ways to engage:

• Share: when we need to tell the public about a government initiative.
• Consult: when we need to gather feedback from the public about a problem or a solution.
• Deliberate: when we need help from the public because a problem involves competing values, and requires trade-offs and compromise.
• Collaborate: when we need help from the public to find and implement a solution.

Nearly 1,000 people from the APS and the public helped us build this tool. We also drew on content from other governments. See how we developed the framework.

Guide to the right engagement

The Guide to the right engagement is an interactive decision tool that helps you choose the best engagement.

Deliberative engagement

The Open dialogue roadmap shows how deliberation can potentially transform how government works. It helps you make a case for more deliberate engagement, and explains how to conduct engagements using informed participation.

Read more

See how other governments and organisations engage:

• Today’s problems, yesterday’s toolkit: Australia and New Zealand School of Government report on restoring trust in government by reinventing how the public service works.
• Timeout: A Sitra project under the Finnish Parliament to explore public participation.
• YourSAy: South Australian Government’s engagement platform.

Contact us

Do you need advice, or just want to talk about engagement? Email DISERPolicyLab@industry.gov.au