High Attendance, Low Trust
A water utility is running a three-year sewer separation programme in a city of 300,000. Quarterly community liaison panels are well attended (average 38 people), the project newsletter is delivered to 12,000 homes, and the complaints line receives about 20 calls a month. The engagement dashboard reports these as green. However, a representative household survey finds trust in the utility has fallen from 54% to 39% in two years, and 62% of residents say they do not know how to influence decisions. Two councillors have publicly criticised the programme after a flooding incident. The project board reviews the dashboard quarterly and has just approved a 15% engagement budget cut because 'engagement is working'. The programme has 18 months left to run.
1. Critique the dashboard and propose a balanced set of engagement indicators with reporting rules.
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The dashboard measures activity, not engagement. Attendance, newsletter delivery and complaint volume are outputs; they can all look healthy while trust falls and residents feel unheard. Average attendance also hides who is in the room: 38 people may be the same 38. A complaints line count says nothing about whether complaints were resolved or whether people know how to raise them. All-green reporting on these measures is actively misleading the board.
A balanced set would include:
- Reach and representativeness: percentage of affected households reached; whether panel membership reflects the affected areas.
- Awareness and understanding: survey measures of awareness of the programme and of how to influence decisions.
- Trust and attitude: tracked trust score, segmented by area; stakeholder attitude for councillors and community groups.
- Influence and response: number of issues raised, percentage resolved within agreed timescale, examples of changes made.
- Delivery: commitments kept on time; complaints by theme and stage.
- Leading indicators: early warning from door-knocking, panel feedback and social media sentiment.
Reporting rules: baseline and trend, red/amber thresholds, named owner, data source and frequency. The board should see outcomes and risks, not an activity count.
2. The board has cut the budget based on the dashboard. What is your response, and how should the evidence be presented?
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I would challenge the decision respectfully and quickly, before it is implemented. The dashboard does not support the conclusion that engagement is working; it shows activity is working while the outcome has deteriorated. The trust fall from 54% to 39%, the 62% who do not know how to influence decisions, and public criticism from councillors after a flooding incident are exactly the conditions in which cutting engagement increases delivery risk.
I would present a one-page outcome scorecard: trend lines, the survey methodology and margin of error, the councillor statements, the complaint themes, and a map of where trust is lowest. Then offer a reallocation rather than a simple restoration: protect targeted engagement in flood-affected areas and with councillors; reduce low-value newsletter volume; shift panel resources to deliberative sessions with affected streets; add a short monthly door-knock survey.
I would also state the risk explicitly: if the cut proceeds, the programme should record that the board accepted a higher risk of objection, delay and reputational damage. That is not obstruction; it is making the trade-off visible.
3. Design a continuous improvement loop for the engagement programme, including how lessons are captured and applied.
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I would run a quarterly cycle with the project board, not an annual review.
- Plan: agree engagement objectives and indicators for the next quarter, linked to construction phases.
- Do: deliver the engagement, with a live issues log and commitment tracker.
- Check: review the balanced scorecard, panel feedback, complaint themes, a short stakeholder survey and after-action reviews after each major activity.
- Act: make one or two specific changes, assign an owner and date, and report back to stakeholders.
Lessons capture should be routine: a 30-minute debrief after each panel and consultation event, using three questions - what worked, what did not, what will we change? Record them in a lessons log with phase, owner and status, and review at the start of the next phase so they are applied, not archived.
Close the loop publicly: a 'you said, we did' section in the newsletter and at panels, including what was not changed and why. That is both good engagement and evidence of improvement. Track a small number of improvement actions to completion and report them alongside the trust measure.