Partnership and Community Engagement

Building Relationships & Knowledge through Collaboration

For Local Authorities, strategic partnerships and other public agencies that want to improve community leadership and partnership working, iNovem's web-based community and consultation products provide an innovative way to engage with, and understand the needs of, local communities.

iNovem's software solutions are designed to complement existing methods of collaboration, consultation and communication with partners and citizens. They will enable you to:

• Encourage better communication between your colleagues, customers and partners
• Facilitate effective joint-working, discussions and information sharing between meetings
• Track and monitor projects to ensure effective partnership working
• Co-ordinate, publicise and carry out joint consultations - for example your Community Plan
• Increase the involvement of citizens and staff through e-consultation techniques
• Carry out e-debates and engage people into the political and democratic process

The need is evident, especially given the increasing demand for efficiency and accountability:

"The corporate assessment will become more challenging, in that it will: assess the performance of the council in leading and influencing communities, local partnerships and other local agencies, with a focus on what difference councils are making to local places and people." - 2005 CPA Proposals

iNovem's e-participation products can also be used to support a variety of IEG4 Priority Outcomes:

• Democratic Renewal - promotes greater public involvement in local decision making and enhances the representative role of councillors in the community
• Public access to reports, minutes and agendas from past council and partnership meetings
• Provide every councillor with the option to have an easy-to-manage set of public web pages (for community leadership purposes) that they can maintain themselves
• Empower and support local organisations, community groups and clubs to create and maintain their own information online
• Support home/remote working for council members and staff

iNovem's products are architected to provide you with an integrated approach to collaboration with your partners, citizens, staff and other key stakeholders. They are designed to be extremely easy-to-use and will allow you to communicate and share knowledge in a secure web-based environment.

Once registered, users can be invited to join a variety of online communities and consultations that can be set to be public or private. A single stakeholder database is used to manage and monitor participation to allow you to profile users based on their interests and contributions.

Team Initiative for Local Government

• See the Team Initiative Overview
• Team Initiative in action - Wolverhampton Partnership (External link)
• Team Initiative in action - Bath & North East Somerset's "BE In Touch" Partnership (External link)