Sutherland Council Community Engagement Study

The Context

Sutherland Shire Council was developing its community engagement strategy and needed to ensure it reflected the full diversity of residents and businesses across the Shire.

Critically, this work would inform major planning, service delivery and funding decisions.

Ultimately, the work by Ruby Cha Cha enabled Council to move from broad consultation to confident, community-backed decisions.

The Challenge

The community varies significantly by: Household structure and life stage; Geography (wards and local areas); Service usage and needs.

SS Council needed to:

Capture the full range of community perspectives in a structured, representative way
Understand what services matter most—and to whom
Balance competing priorities to inform investment decisions, including rate considerations and asset utilisation (e.g. pools, leisure centres)

The Journey

A multi-layered engagement program to deliver both depth of insight and representative validation:

Citizen Forums including both residents and local businesses
Exploration of attitudes toward key service areas, trade-offs and priorities
Quantitative (scale & representation) representative survey of Shire residents
Insights grounded through clear, accessible materials, including infographics and a video from the General Manager to ensure informed participation

The Results

The study created a powerful evidence base for decision-making:

Developed clear community typologies, enabling more targeted planning and communication
Identified priority services and investment areas across different segments
Defined how best to engage each group (channels, messaging and touchpoints)
Built a structured asset trade-off framework to support complex asset and funding decisions
Provided a robust evidence base for rate discussions and IPART submission

Sutherland Council Community Engagement Study

The Context

The Challenge

The Journey

The Results

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