How should we plan for the new energy future while providing affordable services that meet changing customer and community needs? Two representative ‘Voice of the Customer’ panels in Queensland answered this question. Randomly selected, everyday customers deliberated and agreed on recommendations that electricity distributors Ergon Energy Network and Energex used to prepare Regulatory Proposals for the Australian Energy Regulator (AER). Delve into a tale of two deliberative customer panels, and gain ideas and insights you can draw on for your next project.
CASE STUDY: Jemena
Jemena Electricity Network has been implementing a comprehensive engagement program for the organisation's 2026-2031 Regulatory Proposal, employing a multi-dimensional approach to allow customers direct influence over proposed future pricing and services. MosaicLab codesigned and lead the facilitation of the process, that included a deliberative panel and brings diverse customer, stakeholder, and industry perspectives into the decision-making process.
CASE STUDY: AUSGRID VOICE OF COMMUNITY PANEL
As part of the development of Ausgrid's 2024-2029 regulatory submission, two randomly selected customer panels deliberated over a collective 10 full days. The panels, facilitated by MosaicLab and Gauge Consulting, considered how Ausgrid should look to the future while remaining fair to customers today. Ausgrid's three-year engagement process allowed customers to influence what Ausgrid spends customers money on, giving them a rare insight and influence over the cost of electricity, an issue that directly impacts the lives of everyday people.
CASE STUDY: TACKLING TOBACCO HARM IN PUBLIC HOUSING
Four language interpreters. Child-minding. Recruitment challenges. Birthday cake and a lot of laughs. These are just some of the unique highlights of our work with Quit Victoria and VicHealth in 2022 on a project to reduce tobacco-related harm in public housing. This case study takes a detailed look at how MosaicLab supported this process with a residents’ panel and sense-making workshops. All to drive improved, long-term outcomes for community and public health.
CASE STUDY: WATER WORKS ACROSS 2021 - 23
The past three years have seen a tremendous amount of water works under the bridge in the deliberative engagement catchment (oh yes, puns galore!). It has provided us with such a great opportunity to design and facilitate a range of interesting processes from community co-designing long-term strategies, through to community deciding pricing and servicing levels across the water industry. Let’s take a closer look.
CASE STUDY: GLEN EIRA CITY COUNCIL ASSET PLAN
In 2022, council worked with MosaicLab to deliver an engagement process to gather community feedback about its assets. The process included a survey and the creation of a citizens’ panel, one of the first we hosted fully face-to-face post-pandemic. Participants enjoyed not only being ‘back in the room’ but also the strong sense of achievement at the end of the process as they saw their recommendations reflected in the final Asset Plan adopted by council.
CASE STUDY: BARWON WATER
CASE STUDY: LESSONS LEARNT FROM A FULLY ONLINE DELIBERATIVE PANEL
CASE STUDY: LESSONS LEARNT MOVING A PANEL FROM IN-PERSON TO ONLINE
The Bayside 2050 Community Vision Panel came together to hold the first of its three full days of deliberations immediately before social isolation came into force in response to COVID-19. The rest of the deliberations were subsequently completed online.
This post explains how MosaicLab moved the panel online and our learnings from the experience.
BUILDING INTERNAL COUNCIL ENGAGEMENT TO BEST SERVE THE COMMUNITY
In recent months, we delivered a series of internal engagement programs for Monash City Council, Greater Shepparton City Council and Melton City Council to help build the momentum for engagement internally. Councils have been working on Community Engagement Policies, Council Plans, Frameworks and capacity building programs and have seen the value of engaging a diverse range of staff in this work.
In this blog, some of our council colleagues and facilitators provide their learnings from the internal engagement processes.