Making global local: Global methods, local planning, and the importance of genuine community engagement in Australia

Abstract In 2021, faced with rolling changes to the rules of community engagement due to COVID restrictions, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council, a local government on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, embarked on the creation of their new Cultural Plan. With State Government legislation requiring local governments to create strategic planning with documented community engagement, an opportunity presented itself for the researchers to work with council and community. In this research, we combined a modified Design Thinking model, Co-Design Principles and Harvard Kennedy School’s Public Policy Design Arc. Our aim was to explore, firstly, whether this approach might build the capacity of both council staff and community representatives in the use of design methods for strategic planning, and secondly, whether it could provide a framework of genuine community engagement for council staff. This paper discusses how and why these approaches were adapted for a local government to create the ‘SITT Model’ and how council staff and community representatives responded to the process.


Introduction
In 2021, faced with rolling changes to the rules of community engagement due to COVID restrictions, Port Macquarie-Hastings Council (PMHC), a local government tucked away on the Mid North Coast of New South Wales (NSW), Australia, embarked on the creation of their new Cultural Plan. With NSW State Government legislation requiring local governments to create strategic planning with documented community engagement (Christensen 2019;Christensen and McQuestin 2019;Christensen and Grant 2020), an opportunity presented itself for the researchers to work with council and community to combine three designerly approaches to the planning process. We 2. Local government's growing interest in strategic planning and community engagement In contrast to many countries where mayors and councilors have greater responsibilities, local government in Australia is characterized by its limited authority and lack of constitutional status (NSW Government, Local Govrnment Act 1993). State government legislation delegates limited powers to New South Wales' 128 councils, which are monitored and advised by the State's Office of Local Government. Local government reforms throughout Australia, between 1989 and2009, introduced provisions to develop strategic or management planning and reporting regimes, designed to make local authorities more responsive to community wishes (Aulich 2009;Prior and Herriman 1970). The NSW Local Government Act (1993;2009) notably requires councils to develop and endorse a 'community strategic plan … that identifies the main priorities and aspirations for the future of the local government area covering a period of at least 10 years'. Community strategic plans have since become the dominant planning instrument in NSW municipalities (Grant and Drew 2017, 244;Prior and Herriman 1970, 58). As Prior and Herriman (1970, 60) explain (emphasis in original): community strategic plans seek to give emphasis to community-led rather than councilled strategy development, the idea being that the plan is owned by the local community, developed through extensive input by the community, and is for the community/whole local government area.
Alongside these developments in strategic planning, recent decades have more broadly seen a reprioritisation in Australian local government, from 'services to property' to 'services to people' (Dollery, Wallis, and Allan 2006). An increasing proportion of funds is directed away from roads and toward 'housing and community amenities' and 'recreation and culture' (Dollery and Byrnes 2009, 96). The increasingly important role that local governments play in the delivery and support of the cultural arts and creative industries sector is demonstrated in the distribution of cultural funding by Australian governments in the 2019-2020 financial year. Local governments contributed 25.3% of total funding, with state governments contributing 36.7% and the federal government 37.9% (Fielding and Trembath 2022). 1 Although there are no specific legislative requirements for cultural plans to be developed in any Australian jurisdiction, it has become common for municipalities to develop a cultural plan and to report arts and cultural services against measures in the council's strategic plan/s (Blomkamp 2014;Uppal and Dunphy 2019). A cultural plan is a strategic planning document that typically focuses on arts programmes and venues for creative activity. Nearly all 69 municipalities sampled by Uppal and Dunphy (2019) had published a strategic council plan, whereas only one third had a current cultural plan. Cultural plans are much more common in urban municipalities than in regional authorities (Uppal and Dunphy 2019). Examining local cultural policy in Australia and New Zealand, Blomkamp (2014) identified several challenges for monitoring and evaluating cultural plans, including constraints around resourcing, organizational structure and discourse, technical issues, and attitudes to arts and culture. The capacity of councils to develop, implement and evaluate cultural plans varies greatly according to their size, experience and geographical context (Prior and Herriman 1970;Uppal and Dunphy 2019).
International discourses of sustainable development and community participation may have influenced Australian local government (Thomas and Memon 2007;Denters and Rose 2005). Over recent decades there has certainly been a growing interest in cultural and community-building activities alongside increasing requirements to engage in strategic planning and reporting. The local government legislation of all Australian states emphasizes 'that communities should be included in planning' (Uppal and Dunphy 2019). As in several other states, NSW legislation explicitly directs municipalities to engage communities in the development of strategic plans. All NSW councils are required to report on, 'prepare and implement a community engagement strategy to develop their community strategic plans so that local communities can be involved in important discussions' about local identity, services and funding priorities (NSW Division of Local Government 2009, 2;Prior and Herriman 1970, 52).
However, this does not necessarily result in authentic engagement. There is limited evidence of community engagement within council strategic plans or cultural plans. The primary form of evidence about the community used in local government planning continues to appear in the limited form of demographic data from the Australian Bureau of Statistics (Grant and Drew 2017, 218). The hopes of previous reforms do not seem to have been actualized yet: designing and managing significant community engagement processes not only demands a substantial time commitment by council staff, but also requires specific skill sets in these staffskills that may not have previously been identified as important in roles which were traditionally focused on technical or contract management tasks. (Prior and Herriman 1970, 64) As with cultural planning, the ability of councils to meet community engagement requirements depends on their previous experience and capacity, which is typically determined by their size and location (Prior and Herriman, 1970). There is 'uneven capacity across very diverse LGAs in NSW' (Grant and Drew 2017, 228). Community engagement in local government is typically led and shaped by consultants, especially in deliberative processes (Grant and Drew 2017, 257). Christensen and Grant (2020) describe the 'outsourcing of local democracy' and the possible risks this may have to local governance and democratic participation. As commercialization of community engagement growsfor better or worsethis study takes a timely and applied approach to the role of long-term capacity building in design methods for community and council staff alike.

Applying designerly methods to policymaking
A unique feature of our approach (the SITT Model described below) to community engagement in local cultural planning is our use of theories, principles and methods from the discipline of design.
Public sector innovation labs in particular have promoted designerly approaches for eliciting active community participation (Torjman 2012;McGann, Wells, and Blomkamp 2021). Like other participatory methods, co-design approaches are sought after to increase the likelihood of identifying transformative solutions and adding democratic legitimacy to any enacted results. By involving community members in reframing problems and developing ideas, design methods can enable a richer understanding of complex public problems and support the emergence of more relevant and effective options (Rebolledo 2016;Sørensen and Waldorff 2014;Hartley, Sørensen, and Torfing 2013). Co-design, in particular, is based on the democratic principle that all those 'affected by design decisions should be involved in the process of making the decisions' (Sanoff 1990, i). Co-designing and co-producing strategic plans with community members increases the likelihood of governments meeting the needs of residents and stakeholders, as well as achieving joint ownership for solutions (Torfing and Ansell 2017;Durose and Richardson 2016). Collaborating with diverse actors can fundamentally change the way public problems are perceived and prevent public sector organizations 'from wasting money, time and energy on solving the "wrong" problem' (Sørensen and Torfing 2015, 152).
Design researchers claim that the application of designerly thinking is helping to generate an entirely different decision-making model for public policy and management (Bailey and Lloyd 2016). Design thinking involves more than an extension to the existing mix of policy tools, but 'a different way for policymaking to be done' (Bason 2014, 3). It reorients policymaking away from universalist understandings of scientific rigor and objectivity and toward a model that includes a greater range of values, norms and types of evidence (Blomkamp and Lewis forthcoming;Rebolledo 2016). Pragmatic agreement between policy designers and 'non-expert' users about the desirability and practicality of solutions-rather than statistical validity-determines the evidence base for decision-making in design-based approaches (Blomkamp and Lewis 2023). The methods and approaches of design require different capabilities to those that government workers tend to be trained in and rewarded for. In particular, these design approaches require humility and an emotional connection to participants in the design process (Kolko 2018;McKercher 2020).

The social is the thing: Methodology
This study has undertaken a methodological bricolage from a practice-led design perspective. The terms 'bricolage' and 'bricoleur' derive from the French words that refer to 'do it yourself' and acknowledge 'uncertainty and complexity, experience and, perhaps, a certain intuitive sense' (Hammersley 2012;Coghlan and Brydon-Miller 2014). Yee and Bremner (2011) argue that the bricoleur is the 'best operative' within the practice-led design research context, as researchers navigate 'complex, indeterminate and temporal' frameworks. In line with both design research and interpretive policy analysis, we have allowed the conceptual framework and methodology to develop iteratively throughout the study and chosen methods appropriate to the particularities of the site and object of inquiry (Yanow 2000;Glynos et al. 2009). We provide a brief overview of the research design here and acknowledge our positionality. We elaborate on methods in later sections describing how the SITT Model was applied in context.
As an emerging discipline within research, practice-led design is still forming and testing its own methodological approaches. This presents an opportunity to have the inquiry drive the methodology, not the other way around. Yee and Bremner (2011) explain that design research can require an investigation of material, historical, scientific, social and psychological issues, and that the benefit of taking a bricolage approach is based on the nature of practice-led design research questions, the generation of new knowledge, and understanding in and of itself. Further, as design is also concerned with the role that tacit understanding has within practice, it stretches the more traditional research boundaries, which focus on articulating explicit understanding. This in turn has not only affected the types of questions that are generated, often leading from practice-led inquiry, but that practice has also become an interrogated part of the inquiry.
The context for applying the SITT model was the development of the Port Macquarie-Hastings Cultural Plan. Taking an action research approach, the authors designed and facilitated workshops incorporating design and evaluation methods 2 with PMHC staff and the Cultural Steering Group. As well as collaborative documentation using online platforms such as Miro and Jamboards, the researchers took observational notes and conducted a focus group debrief. The focus group included Port Macquarie-Hastings staff who were involved in the Cultural Plan development and three members of the Cultural Steering Group (CSG). We followed up with other CSG members who could not attend the focus group, organizing one-on-one meetings where possible.
The methods for data collection and analysis draw on methodologies such as ethnography, hermeneutics and action research. We chose methods based on their potential to provide practice-based insights, such as participant observation, autoethnographic reflections, open-ended interviewing and focus group discussions. We also responded to participants' preferences and capabilities, inviting them to contribute their own ways of working and understanding to the group workshops. We used methods of analysis and synthesis common in design research, such as affinity maps. This included drawing on a range of data, such as workshop artifacts, interview transcriptions and observational notes to create thematic groupings to gain deeper insights.
Recognizing that our findings represent inter-subjective reasoning and contextdependent knowledge, we acknowledge our positionality within the research. The above discussion has already demonstrated how we combined methodological expertise and knowledge of literature from our respective disciplines of design research and policy studies. Both researchers had academic positions that bestowed an 'expert authority' and significant experience facilitating design processes. This is important to acknowledge in the context of the power sharing principle of co-design, which we endeavored to balance by inviting participants to bring their own tools and ways of knowing to the group. Following the tenets of participatory action research, we relinquished some power over the direction of research activities, with the aim of respecting local knowledge and enabling participants to lead change (McIntyre 2008;Blomkamp 2014).
As well as informing our interpretations, our personal and professional characteristics would have shaped the way participants engaged and interacted in this study. The position of each researcher varied in relation to the project and community members. The chief investigator had an established relationship with both PMHC staff and the council's Cultural Steering Group (CSG), having been a community representative of the CSG for five years. As well as providing access to the research site, this meant they had developed a significant level of trust with the participants and local government employees, allowing for a more experimental approach to the research, while bringing a local perspective to data analysis. The second researcher brought external perspectives and ideas, informed by work across broader networks and borders. As Schwartz-Shea and Yanow (2012, 29) note, being a 'stranger' in an applied research setting can help to see what insiders take for granted and know tacitly. Together, the researchers brought an 'inside/outside' balance to the design, facilitation and reflection activities. This approach could be considered typical of contemporary social research, which is characterized by researchers' willingness to adopt 'a "membership" role in the communities they study' and treat participants as 'collaborative partners' rather than research "subjects" (Denzin and Lincoln 2003, 114-15). We bring these perspectives to bear on our subsequent discussion and reflections on the application of the SITT model.

The social is the thing: Development of the framework model
The Social is the Thing (SITT) project has focused on the development of a model that offers an applied approach to community engagement at the local government level. It brings together three different but overlapping design approaches, each providing a reinforcement for the other where gaps may occur. Firstly, it incorporates the principles of Co-Design, which provides a practical mindset for working with communities, particularly on policies that directly affect them (McKercher 2020; Blomkamp 2018). Secondly, it includes the Creative Citizen Project (CCP) Model, a modified Design Thinking approach developed during an education research study (Wahlin et al. 2022). The CCP model factors the designer into the process as a potential agent of change. Thirdly, SITT incorporates the Harvard Kennedy School's (2018) Public Policy Design Arc and Strategic Triangle, which focuses on the stages of public policy development, the role of values, and, much like Design Thinking, defining the problem to be solved. While each of these contribute unique methods and ways of thinking to local government strategic planning, they all offer practical tools for community engagement and situate people at the heart of policy design (see Figures 1, 2 and 3).

Principles of co-design
Co-design can be considered a mindset for working with communities. At its heart, codesign promotes the elevation of lived experience to sit alongside professional expertise. McKercher (2020) outlines four essential principles for authentic co-design: 1. Share Power: We must acknowledge and address the power dynamics that exist in every community, and share in each stage of the process: 'research, decisionmaking, design, delivery and evaluation' (McKercher 2020, 14). 2. Prioritize Relationships: Co-design is only possible if relationships are built on social connection and trust. 'Trust paves the way for conversations where we confront the metaphorical elephant in the room' (McKercher 2020, 14). 3. Use Participatory Means: In co-design, we provide a range of ways in which people can take part and express themselves. For example, sticky notes, paper and markers, or digital collaboration tools, in addition to slideshows and written materials, diversify how people can learn and contribute. 4. Build Capacity: Providing support and encouragement helps participants 'adopt new ways of being and doing, learn from others and have their voices heard' (McKercher 2020, 15). Design facilitators shift their role from 'expert' to 'coach': 'everyone has something to teach and something to learn' (McKercher 2020, 15). The co-design principles encourage facilitators to avoid a 'one-size-fits-all' approach, such as a rigid sequential model of identical phases regardless of context. Just as every project has its own unique aims, so too does each person contributing to the design process.

CCP model of design thinking
The modified approach to Design Thinking was developed during the Creative Citizen Project (CCP), which worked with young regional Australians to combine creative skills, design thinking and civics and citizenship education to build their capacity to engage in their communities and democratic processes. To this end, it follows the principles of co-design and shares many common goals with the SITT Model. The CCP Model builds on the standard Design Thinking framework by asking co-designers to bring their values, personal experiences and context into the design process. This aims to make explicit what people 'bring to a room'. As an additional stage at the end, we added 'reflect/evolve', which asks participants to articulate what they have learned from the process and whether it resulted in a shift in the standpoint they started with. In the more standard models of the Design Thinking process, designers begin with empathy for others and then move between 'the user' and defining 'the problem' through ideation, iteration and evaluation. They do not factor the designer as an individual into the process and how they may affect or be affected by a project. As design continues to rapidly expand into public policy, health, social services and more, individual participants need to be both responsible for their contributions and cared for in the process. In adding the new stages to the Design Thinking process, the CCP Model weaves the designer, the user and the process of designing together. This acknowledges: 1. The designer as an agent of social change, who comes with their own values and social context; 2. That the process of designing has the potential for both positive and negative emotional affect; and 3. That the design process can lead to personal growth, experiences in 'different ways of knowing', building capacity in empathy, problem solving and self reflection.
The CCP Model acknowledges that the personal and social contexts of individuals do not sit outside the design process but are integral to it, and both shape and are shaped by it. This aligns with ontological understandings of design (Willis 2006).

The public policy design arc
As we have seen with co-design's focus on people's lived experience and the CCP Model's combination of standpoint/locate and empathy, Harvard's Kennedy School of Government's (2018) Public Policy Design Arc (PPDA) offers a common ground between design methods and public policy with its incorporation of a user-centered approach to policy design. At the top of the design arc is the strategic triangle, made up of three overlapping spheres that are essential to all effective policymaking: that it be technically correct, politically supportable and organizationally implementable. Moore from Harvard Kennedy School of Government explains that: Each of the elements of what we call the Strategic Triangle creates a significant intellectual and practical challenge. The triangle demands answers to three tough questions: what's the public value we're creating, where's the legitimacy and support going to come from, and what kind of operational capacity do we need to deliver that? It is not enough to answer each of these questions independently; they all have to align with one another in a particular concrete circumstance. (ANSZOG 2016) The premise of this is that there will always be tradeoffs to consider when creating a policy for a community: there might be organizational limitations, such as the expertise and number of staff or funding constraints, or regulatory limitations, such as the overarching state legislation that governs Australian local governments. With all local government strategic plans requiring ratification by elected representatives, they must also be politically supportable. Importantly, all three spheres should inform -and be informed by -the potential public value of a policy.
Below the strategic triangle, the policy design arc further breaks down the policy design process (Figure 4). The first two stages in particular share central tenets with co-design and the CCP Model, as shown in Figure 5.
Mapping of the SITT Model helped to identify where one approach might fill in a gap for another. For example, the co-design principles do not specifically address 'define' or 'problem', but set the scene for allowing the space for codesigners to collaborate. The PPDA does not explicitly include empathy, but this is identified as a key consideration in both CCP and co-design. The mapping also helps to identify common philosophical approaches. Most notable of these is 'share power' (co-design), 'locate/standpoint' (CCP) and 'values' (PPDA). These all acknowledge the social aspects of collaborative design and power relations. The PPDA digs deeper on these, framing values through a normative and cognitive lens, which Surel (2000) likens to Geertz's (1964, cited in Surel, 2000 conception of ideology. That is: … one of the principle 'functions' of a cognitive and normative frame shared by a certain number of actors is effectively to develop a 'collective consciousness' in them; in other words, a subjective sense of belonging, producing a specific identity. Cognitive and normative frames allow actors to make sense of their worlds, and to locate themselves and develop in a given community, by defining the field for exchange, by allowing meaning to be conferred on social dynamics, and determining the possibilities for action. Fischer (2003) argues that normative frames and their social meanings are fundamental to understanding public policy. 'Beyond the technical rules,' he writes, 'they convey essential meanings inherent to social and political interaction and are thus deeply involved in policy decision-making' (Fischer 2003, 160). Each of the approaches included in the SITT Model offer tools that can be applied in group settings. However, the aim of the SITT Model is not to create a specific set of tools to be used in every instance, but instead, draw on tools from each approach that are most likely to be appropriate within a given context. In the next section, we discuss the particular approach we undertook during the development of the Cultural Plan and some of the tools we employed.

The SITT model applied in context
The development of the Port Macquarie-Hastings Cultural Plan 2021-2025 took place between January and August 2021. The plan was informed by the Cultural Economy Project, a previous study that involved community engagement in 2019. 3 The researchers supported the development of the Cultural Plan, in collaboration with cultural, tourism and economic development staff in PMHC and its Cultural Steering Group (CSG). The latter was made up of community representatives engaged in many areas of the arts, culture and creative industries, including performing arts, arts tourism, arts infrastructure, heritage and museums, local arts group representatives, higher education, design and arts-based retail. 4 The aforementioned methods of data collection and analysis inform the reflective discussion and diagrams presented here.
We applied co-design principles throughout the process, though were limited by constraints in relation to group member capacity to participate in the requisite timeframe and using the tools available. As a member of the CSG and local cultural communities, the chief investigator had been building relationships with participants prior to this study. Because of these trusting relationships, the staff and CSG were open to trying new methods for strategic planning and evaluation. Although our roles as academics with experience in designerly approaches and facilitators of the planning process put the researchers in a position of expertise, we shared power in a variety of ways. Firstly, we were careful not to impose a predetermined approach, instead presenting a proposed framework and methods to key council staff and engaging in collaborative discussions about how to best work with them and the steering group, taking into account other ongoing and previous council activities. These meetings with staff were designed in a way to build capacity more broadly in strategic planning, evaluation and community engagement. For instance, we explained the rationale behind activities, presented options, provided visual diagrams and modeled other tools that could be reused. Members of the CSG in turn shared some of the tools they were familiar with. These were a welcome contribution to the process, helping participants to learn in ways that made sense to them.
Cultural Steering Group members were invited to participate in collaborative workshops at every stage of the process. These were conducted initially in-person, but due to COVID restrictions, were moved online by the third workshop. Workshops ran approximately once a month, with some more intensive meetings leading up to the submission of the draft plan for public viewing in May. The workshops were broken up into several stages: Stage 1: Articulating values and revising the previous cultural plan's vision. The workshop specifically addressed the overlap between the values of the diverse steering group and how they may or may not align to the previous plan's vision.

Stage 2:
Defining key problem areas (including 'who is it for'?) and introducing a theory of change as a tool for setting the plan's goals against its vision. This stage included data from the Cultural Economy Report.
Stage 3: Aligning the vision, goals and actions. This included a series of intensive workshops with CSG members.
Stage 4: Evaluation strategies. While the evaluation strategies were an important part of this study, they are not included in this paper as they are part of ongoing future research.
These workshops all used participatory means, strategically incorporating tools from the different frameworks in the SITT Model. For example, the Ishigawa Diagram, used in the public policy design arc, was added to a Jamboard and participants were invited to contribute. Figure 6 includes one participant's response, in which they focused on the problem of 'venues' as having causes such as 'cost' with sub-causes of 'inflexible booking arrangements' and 'community arts groups have low income'. This tool enabled participants to share their lived and professional experiences of the local cultural arts and creative industries.
In developing components of both the cultural plan and evaluation framework, steering group members directly contributed their ideas, refining wording and the logical structure, by writing on and rearranging digital sticky notes. While most steering group members readily adopted these tools at a time where in-person meetings were not possible due to COVID-19 restrictions, one or two members struggled in some workshops to fully contribute using technology with which they were unfamiliar and uncomfortable. On the other hand, the notion of divergent and convergent Figure 6. A participant's use of the Ishigawa Diagram. The template was added to a Jamboard, making it possible for participants to identify a problem (placed at the head on the far right), its causes (blue blocks along the top and bottom) and sub causes (on the dotted lines). This is also called the "fishbone diagram".
thinking, fundamental to Design Thinking, proved useful as a way of describing the initial 'messy' stages of the process. For one participant in particular, who came from a background of business and tourism, this mindset was at once both new and exciting, and they later applied it to their work in other community groups.
One of the more complicated tools we used was a Theory of Change. A popular tool to use in place of the contested logframe used in the PPDA (and common in international development), 'theory of change' was introduced in the second workshop and gradually became more central to the process as we progressed (see Figure 7). We created a strategic map for participants as well, so that we could show them where the theory of change sat in relation to the vision and goals (see Figure 8). While we will go into more detail on feedback to this in the next section, this is one area that needs a 'pocket version' (to use a participant's expression), as it was a more difficult concept for most to implement in practice.

Feedback and reflections
After the Cultural Plan was officially adopted by PMHC in August 2021, we ran a focus group with both Council staff and members of the Cultural Steering Group. In reflecting on the process, CSG members and council staff acknowledged that the compressed timeframe was a factor in setting the pace of the workshops and they would have preferred more time to understand some of the tools and concepts. This shorter timeline was the result of changes in the local government elections in NSW, which were canceled in 2020 due to the pandemic and rescheduled for December 2021. With councils going into caretaker mode four weeks prior to the election date, the Cultural Plan had to be collaboratively written, put on public display, amended and then put to Councilors for their vote prior to the cutoff. This timeframe meant that only six core  . Strategic roadmap shared with participants after the few first two workshops. This aimed to visualize the workshops to that point and revise the theory of change. The vision at the top was co-created by the participants. 'CEP' refers to the Cultural Economy Project (see endnote 3), and below this shows the overarching goals from this report. At this stage, the work on the social outcome goals was still to come. steering group members who had availability for regular collaborative workshops were able to participate in the whole process. The researchers attempted to mitigate some of the time pressures in workshops by offering engaging and asynchronous media such as video updates and inviting members to refine contributions via Jamboard, email or phone calls between workshops. Very few members engaged with these resources outside of workshops, however, meaning more time was needed in sessions to ensure key information was understood and digital collaboration platforms could be used. While the circumstances may have been unique here, it is not uncommon to experience time and resource constraints in designing strategic plans or facilitating community engagement in local government.
The Theory of Change was particularly difficult for some participants to grasp, but it is also one of the most important tools in mapping a plan from vision to impact. Our visual representation confounded this as it started with inputs rather than high level outcomes, as is typical in theory of change development. The members of the CSG noted they would have preferred the impact to come first in the Theory of Change, and it is fair to say that starting from the 'vision' would have followed the sequence of the workshops better. The Theory of Change became particularly important as we moved into the evaluation phase. At this stage, a smaller number of the members agreed to form a subgroup. During this phase in particular, the use of the tools became more complex and most members felt the process became more challenging to understand. Although the evaluation phase is not included in depth in this paper, it is important to note that cultural evaluation is notoriously difficult and has the potential to disengage community. This may point to the limitations of community participation, when it comes to technical issues like evaluation. On the other hand, it is an area of huge potential; the CSG members even discussed in one workshop how they might become part of the evaluation process, bringing back community observations and reflections. This proposal could ignite a whole new pathway for community steering groups to contribute to the plans they help create, giving them opportunities to engage with other community members' thoughts and feelings about the value of local culture.
The willingness of core steering group members to contribute to the planning process impressed the researchers. These members readily adopted new tools, generated original ideas, and built on and iterated each other's contributions. One participant explained that the group dynamic helped them to "bounce ideas" more freely, lifting them out of a linear mindset. Another added that, although the timeframe was tight, they felt the process still gave them time to brainstorm together, allowing them to hear ideas from people they hadn't heard from previously. It is also important to acknowledge that the more effective workshops were those held in-person, as these allowed for the most robust discussions.
Reflecting the region's unique characteristics and community's values, CSG members put forth wording that resonated more strongly with the group than generic phrases from nationwide guidelines on cultural planning and evaluation. This demonstrated the potential to more fully engage community members, using designerly approaches to strategic planning and evaluation, than is common at any level of government in Australia. Council staff also felt the process made them feel more supported by the CSG, with one noting: I really felt like we had a group of people who were invested in getting a good outcome and working alongside council to be advocates, to be critical contributors and also who have the capacity to walk away from that process … to tell other people about how it worked and, I guess, to support us in the work that we're doing as council staff. So I've found that really, really valuable … I just loved that. You know, everybody rolling their sleeves up together … walking away feeling like we've done some really great work together.
Another more senior council staff member explained: I've reflected on developing other strategies and plans … from an engagement perspective, and working with our council engagement team, there is a lot of structure around how that occurs and why we do things the way that we do in terms of surveys or focus groups or what have you. But this was a very different experience for us in developing a plan and definitely drew out more depth in thinking and people whose voices are not typically as loud. That's always the thing that we struggle with when we do engagement …

Conclusion and future research
As a pilot project, there is much to learn from this applied designerly approach to local government strategic planning. The first is to find ways to make the more complicated tools accessible, or, as one participant called it, 'the pocket edition'. Simple analogies and clear visual diagrams can help to explain the tools and principles of strategic planning and community engagement, making them more accessible. Sufficient time, appropriate skills and suitable platforms are nonetheless required to truly apply the power-sharing and capacity-building principles of co-design.
This article has offered insights from combining design and policy methodologies in one specific instance of action research. We have illustrated the challenges and benefits of applying a model that combines concepts and tools from co-design, design thinking and public policy design. In particular, this has suggested the potential for adapting designerly methods to collaboratively engage community members and government staff in strategic planning. This could help local governments in Australia to meet their statutory requirements and develop plans and policies that are technically correct, politically supportable and organizationally implementable.
Despite shared appreciation for the process of developing the cultural plan, the PMHC's Cultural Steering group was recently disbanded, along with a swathe of steering groups, working parties and sub committees. At the time of writing, there is no plan in place to create a new steering group that specifically focuses on cultural arts and the creative industries. What this means for the future development of the cultural arts and creative industries in the region is unknown. However, the Cultural Plan and its evaluation still remain a priority as a ratified strategic planning document. The evaluation of the plan has now broadened to include a pilot study, in partnership with the Cultural Development Network, PMHC and other councils in the region. The Cultural Development Network aims to create a network of councils that share data on the effectiveness of addressing issues through cultural programs and activities. This may bolster both the internal knowledge of cultural evaluation among the region's council staff and potentially strengthen cultural activity despite ebbs and flows in elected regimes.
The SITT Model, and indeed taking a designerly approach to local government strategic planning, has demonstrated its potential to create opportunities for genuine community engagement -challenging and messy as that can sometimes be. The process welcomed in-depth discussions that led to deeper relationships in the community, built more trust in and support for council staff, and saw CSG members take ownership of the Cultural Plan. In response to the questions asked earlier in this paper, can this process play a role in the democratization of design methods, and could this help mitigate risks to democracy itself?, we suggest the answer is yes, though acknowledge the limitations of this singular example. Sharing the tools and mindsets of design can make these methods more widely accessible, but sharing them within a democratic process has the potential to fundamentally change the nature of community engagement both for governments and for the people they represent. Notes 1. These figures do not include stimulus funding that was allocated during a four-month time frame of the pandemic in 2020. The 2019-2020 financial year was an extraordinary one for Cultural funding in Australia when this stimulus is included, totaling AUD$7,025m. However, when broken down, much of this extraordinary increase was due to non-sector specific funding for COVID support, including the Jobkeeper and Boosting Cash Flow programs. In real terms, cultural funding by Australian governments in real terms has decreased by 6.9% per capita in 2019-2020, when compared to [2007][2008]. For the purposes of this paper, cultural spending by Australian governments reveals the importance of the role local government plays in cultural programs and development. For more detailed information, see report, 'The Big Picture 2: Public Expenditure on Artistic, Cultural and Creative activity in Australia in 2007-08 to 2019-20 0 (Fielding and Trembath 2022). 2. The evaluation strategies in this project were based on the Four Pillar approach (Kazimirski and Pritchard 2014), as well as other approaches to cultural measures based on previous research by the co-investigator. These have not been included in this paper, as they are part of an ongoing joint study with the Cultural Development Network (CDN). 3. The Cultural Economy Report was a deliverable action from the Cultural Plan 2018-2021.
Commissioned by PMHC, the research was conducted by Positive Solutions with the Maytrix Group: http://www.positive-solutions.com.au/. The report provided a range of policy recommendations and data and was particularly useful in guiding early discussions with the CSG. It's important to note that this only included recommendations related to the cultural economy, not to the social impact of culture. 4. Not all members of the Cultural Steering Group took part in this study. Willhemina Wahlin was a member of the Cultural Steering Group from 2017 to 2022 and, along with Emma Blomkamp, facilitated workshops for this study.

Ethical approval
This study was approved by the ethics committee of Charles Sturt University (Protocol number H21264).

Disclosure statement
No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.