Sutherland Shire Resilience Strategy Deliberative Community Panel
Sutherland Shire Council, NSW
Sutherland Shire Council is developing its inaugural Resilience Strategy to help its community prepare for, respond to and recover from future challenges and to build a more connected, prepared and adaptable Local Government Area.
To inform the Strategy, Council engaged CRED Consulting to undertake a two-part community engagement process, initially to understand the shocks and stresses people face across the Shire, the strengths the community brings and the challenges they experience. Insights from this stage were then tested and refined through a representative Community Panel, which developed recommendations for the strategy.
HOW WE DID IT
CRED Consulting designed and led a representative, deliberative community panel to test findings from the broad community engagement and develop recommendations for the Strategy. Deliberative engagement nurtures meaningful conversations, makes space for deeper listening and helps people build the knowledge and capacity to participate meaningfully and build trust.
One of the key principles of deliberative engagement is to work with a representative sample of community. The recruitment process for the Sutherland Shire Community Panel was undertaken independently by Taverner Research and designed to ensure the group of participants reflected the Sutherland Shire LGA census data as closely as possible.
The community panel met over three sessions in September 2025 with strong retention through the process. Activities were designed to be largely self-guided, enabling participants to learn from one another, share lived experience and explore different perspectives through small group discussions, work sheets, individual reflection, whole-of-group conversations and report backs.
The purpose of the community panel was to:
- reflect on shocks and stresses, identify strengths and challenges and opportunities for resilience
- establish expectations for Council’s role in resilience
- develop a collective vision for Sutherland Shire, and
- develop direction-setting recommendations for Council’s consideration.
Throughout the process, CRED Consulting checked back with the panel to ensure they agreed with how their views were captured to test levels of agreement on emerging ideas – allowing time for discussion, refinement and consensus-building.
Image credit: Fancy Boy Photography
OUTCOMES
The community panel developed five vision statements to guide the Resilience Strategy and developed 10 direction-setting recommendations for Council.
The outputs reflect a strong desire for a more connected and inclusive community where people have access to affordable housing and accessible places and spaces and genuine opportunities to participate in decision-making.
Participants emphasised the importance of real-time, trusted information during emergencies and clear pathways to prepare for, respond to and recover from shocks and stresses.To achieve this, they expect Council to be proactive within the community, take a considered approach to planning and development matters and have a clear preparedness, response and recovery process.
Read Council’s summary of the panel findings here