Harbour Trust draft Stakeholder Engagement Strategy & Governance Framework Engagement Strategy
The draft strategy
In July 2020 in response to the findings of the Independent Review the Harbour Trust said they welcomed the significant priority attached to the recommendations in relation to reforming the organisation to focus on the future operational requirements of an ongoing entity and reforming their approach to stakeholder engagement.
core value
In July 2020 in response to the findings of the Independent Review the Harbour Trust said they welcomed the significant priority attached to the recommendations in relation to reforming the organisation to focus on the future operational requirements of an ongoing entity and reforming their approach to stakeholder engagement.
The Trust says it’s draft Stakeholder Engagement Strategy and Governance Framework “will strengthen and clarify community involvement in our work.”
conclusion
HPG’s response is that the Draft Strategy is confused and that to designate groups that have consultative roles as ‘Primary Stakeholders’ is misleading and dangerous.
HPG believes that elevating consultants to ‘Primary Stakeholders’ gives them a voice and weight that is inappropriate and does not accord with the Objects and Functions of the Trust Act. The definition of ‘Primary Stakeholder’ must be amended.
In HPG’s opinion there are three stakeholders of Trust Land. It is clear that ‘present and future generations of Australians’, otherwise known as the ‘community’, is the primary stakeholder of Trust land, the remaining two stakeholders being the Commonwealth Government as owner of Trust lands and the New South Wales Government as residual owner of North Head.
HPG agrees that the Trust should ‘consult widely and act transparently’ as it informs decisions and generates ideas. HPG, however, believes that the discussion about the Strategy should begin with the Trust’s core governance principles as this provides the fundamental context in which stakeholder engagement should be established.
Key points:
1.
It appears the Strategy intends to create ‘new stakeholders’ by elevating advisory groups such as the proposed new Government Forum, business groups, prospective users, and experts to the status of stakeholders for the purpose of providing ‘input and a better balance between input from the community and from other contributors’.
2.
The rationale for creating new stakeholders, being to provide a ’better balance between input from the community and from other contributors’, is a new concept and not a concept that appears in the Trust Act or the Comprehensive Plan. The Comprehensive Plan strongly recognises that community consultation and communication is essential to the Trust developing the shared vision for the future of the Trust lands.
3.
The concept of elevating the status of advisory groups to the status of stakeholders is not addressed or recommended in the Independent Review of the Sydney Harbour Federation Trust (The Review).