Community engagement

Our approach

At Wannon Water, we provide our customers with the water and sewerage services they need to enable a healthy region. As a not-for-profit organisation, we prioritise what we’re investing in to make sure we’re meeting our customers’ needs and expectations while also keeping their bills affordable.

That’s why we understand the importance of engaging with our customers and communities on our activities, projects and services. It helps us share our challenges, make well-informed and transparent decisions, build trusted relationships and deliver value for money.

Our engagement process is annual and ongoing, helping us to:

• Inform the development of our annual corporate plan.
• Provide input into the development of future price submissions.
• Ensure we hear from the diversity of voices in our region.
• Make the right decisions for the future.

Community Engagement Framework

Community and stakeholder engagement comes in many forms at Wannon Water. It’s a core focus of how we operate and is a part of nearly every employee’s role.

It can include entering private land to maintain an asset, managing temporary interruptions, negotiating charges with major customers, running a public education campaign, or asking for feedback on a major project.

Our Community Engagement Framework ensures there are genuine opportunities for people to be involved in the decisions that impact them. It guides how we interact with our customers and the community to build water literacy, and ensure their values, needs, preferences and priorities are considered as part of our decision making.

Our Engagement Cycle summarises the seven-step process we use when we engage.

Why we engage

We engage with our customers and communities in many ways and for many reasons including:

• To build water literacy and a greater understanding of our roles and responsibilities.
• To raise awareness of our support measures for customers finding it difficult to pay their bills.
• To guide the development of our annual corporate plans and five-yearly price submission.
• To help prepare strategic plans such as our 50-year Urban Water Strategy.
• To test customers’ willingness to pay and opportunities for trade-offs.
• For specific projects and programs.

How we engage

Our engagement program includes:

Engage & Explore – our online engagement portal that provides opportunities to learn about projects and programs and provide input.

Quantitative research such as monthly pulse surveys, annual customer value surveys and stakeholder perception surveys.

Qualitative research including pop-ups at community events, drop-in sessions, focus groups, and community education programs.

Tailored engagement such as a deliberative panel to test community perceptions, perspectives and trade-offs to inform our price submission, and stakeholder reference groups to support the development of major strategies.

Stakeholder engagement which allows for ongoing and regular discussions with our key stakeholders including government departments and regulators on operational and strategic issues. We also engage with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander organisations to support social and economic outcomes, build lasting relationships and learn alongside them.

Our Community Advisory Committee helps guide our approach to planning and delivering water and sewerage services, now and for the future, and our vision of a healthy region enabled by water. It provides a place to explore the feedback we receive from our customers and the community and a space to test and discuss complex issues and ideas.

Best practice

Our framework reflects best practice community engagement using the International Association for Public Participation (IAP2) Core Values as a foundation.

It also responds to the Victorian Auditor General’s Office (VAGO) Better Practice Guide: Public Participation in Government Decision-Making.

We want to hear from you

Visit our Engage & Explore website to find out how we’re engaging in your community and to have your say.