2. What do you need in place to get
started?
• Senior political and non-political support
• Someone to champion the project
• The right project team
• An understanding of the level of ambition in
your area
3. Project Team
• We suggest:
– Well known and respected Officers who can
operate at senior and tactical levels in the area
and across organisations
– Highly credible technical experts who can describe
the technical baseline and investment potential
– Community engagement and communication
support who can help you shape the project
dynamically
4. Step 1: Find your Network
• We suggest a co-productive approach:
– Start by researching the groups, individuals who
are already active around this agenda and bring
them together
– Start this research online – its more cost effective
and more likely to help you reach beyond the
usual suspects
5. Step 2: Understand your context
• Be honest about the challenges that you face:
– If the political context is difficult then say so
– If you face local challenge then acknowledge it
– Describe and communicate this context to all the
participants
– Understand the level of technical knowledge in
the conversation
– Understand the level of ambition and targets
6. Step 3: Bring your network
together
• This is not a consultation – we suggest
building this framework with the people who
will use it
– Hold open meetings for the networks that you
have found
– Use these to shape the project approach
– Make sure they test and examine the technical
approach for the baseline
8. Step 4: Create a technical
baseline
• The technical baseline has a number of
elements:
– It describes what is possible technically
– It filters this with respect to local planning
behaviours
– It describes different ways to reach your targets
– It describes the potential for inward investment
9. Step 5: Discuss it. A lot
• If you want people to use your RIF they need
to be involved in creating it:
– This is not a consultation – have open meetings
with a community led agenda
– Make sure that the baseline is agreed and
accepted – create the burning platform
– Use these events to start to describe the
implementation plans
10. Step 6: Use Digital
• A digitally led engagement strategy gives you
a complete and open record of your face to
face meetings and events
– Create a blog and talk about your progress and
what you have learned
– Create a record of your events so that people can
see that you have listened
– Acknowledge the contribution of the network
11. Why Digitally led?
• Its cheaper – costs per transactions are lower, set-up costs are lower and
amendments are low cost
• You reach more people - Digital will help you reach a different audience
to the usual suspects of engagement
• You need to be agile – you can adjust to changes of circumstances far
faster with a digitally led strategy
• Its easier to talk about difficult issues online – it gives voice to people
who are not confident in person and find meetings difficult and it can
provide an anonymous voice for difficult debates
• It fits your values – with a lower carbon footprint
• It lasts – you want to leave an ongoing conversation as a legacy of the
project
13. Step 7: Bring it back together
• You should at this point have an accepted
technical baseline and suggestions for
implementation steps from the network
• You need to:
– Shape these into an action plan
– Start to communicate the process of political
agreement and the way to unlock resources
14. Step 8: Gather Commitments
• As you enter the decision making phase of the
project ask the network to commit to
implementation actions:
– Gather pledges and start to work in the
implementation
– Get public statements of the level of ambition
– Make it clear what the decision making process is
15. Step 9: Make Commitments
• Co-production is about all groups acting. As
you get pledges from the community you
need to start creating firm commitments from
political decision makers
• Ensure that you know how you will support
the network after the RIF is adopted
• Demonstrate some kind of reciprocity
16. Step 10: Make it happen
• At the end of this process you have not only
the RIF but a network of people ready to use it
• Don’t think of the end of the project as the
end of the process – look beyond this to the
network you have created
• Make sure that you know what happens next
