Participation level:
- High (Stakeholders participate in decision)
Innovation level:
- High (Innovative)
Facilitator skill level, and other support required:
- High (Specialist skills)
- Medium (Computer & other expertise)
Can be used for:
- Showcase product, plan, policy
- Engage community
- Discover community issues
- Develop community capacity
- Develop action plan
- Communicate an issue
Consensus Conferences aim to give members of the community a chance to have their say on community issues, to increase their knowledge of and abiltity to participate in such a discussion, and to come to one position statement that all participants can 'own'.
At the end of a Consensus Conference, the outcome should be a position statement that reflects the joint decision(s) of all participants on an issue or proposal.
- Assists in the facilitation of public debate from a range of perspectives.
- Empowers lay people to develop an informed understanding and make some contribution to the development of policy on a sensitive topic.
- Demonstrates a plurality of views on issues.
- Bridges the gap between experts and lay people.
- Can develop new knowledge.
- High costs for set up and recruitment of participants and staging the event.
- The conference would run for a 2-4 day period and therefore resources will be costly.
- The process of panelist selection can be difficult. Stakeholders analysis must be undertaken to predetermine who are the relevant groups.This will ensure that representation from the relevant groups is achieved,
- Need to draw citizens for panels that are representative and from a wide range of backgrounds rather than members of the community who are usually present in participatory processes
- Strict adherence to the rules of implementation is required for the conference to be successful.
- The formalized nature of the tool can restrict impartiality.
- Rapid production of reports and findings is required.
- Choice of an effective facilitator is critical to the success of the conference.
Organizing Consensus Conference
How many people to organize?
- Medium (2-12 people)
Time required:
- Medium (6 weeks-6 months)
Cost:
- High (> AUD$10,000)
- Medium (AUD$1,000-AUD$10,000)
- Select an advisory/planning committee to have the overall responsibility of making sure that all rules of a democratic, fair and transparent process have been followed.
- The committees should then:
- Organise a public meeting and advertise the venue, time and topic to the public, experts in the field to be discussed, the media and appropriate decision-making bodies.
- Select participants for the citizen panel, ensuring a representative sample of the geographic area and/or relevant community groups (about 14 people).
- Hire a professional facilitator to work with the citizen panel during its preparation.
- Book suitable venues for the citizen panel to meet over two weekends to work with a facilitator to formulate the questions to be taken up at the conference, and to participate in the selection of experts to answer them.
- With the help of the citizen panel, select the expert panel in a way that ensures that essential opposing views and professional conflicts can emerge and be discussed at the conference. Good experts are not only knowledgeable but also open-minded and good communicators with an over-view of their field.
- Hold a formal conference (2-4 days) at which:
- Panelists hear experts' responses to questions.
- After hearing these responses, panelists can ask follow up questions.
- The audience is given opportunity to ask questions.
- The panel deliberates and prepares a position statement to achieve consensus on the issue.
- Panelists present outcomes.
- Planning committee prepares a report of the outcomes and distributes to panelists, media and Decision Making bodies.
