The City of Oulu’s participation and interaction plan for 2023–30 guides the implementation of participation and interaction in all divisions.
The City Board approved the City of Oulu’s participation and interaction plan 2023–30 at their meeting in 18 December 2023 § 341. The City of Oulu’s participation and interaction plan is a guiding plan used to strengthen and develop the forms of participation by the City of Oulu. The plan includes objectives and measures in order to develop participation and interaction between the city and the residents, as well as the city and the stakeholders. The goal is for everyone to feel heard and understood and for everyone to have the same opportunity to act, participate and influence in their neighborhood and throughout the whole city.
Central in development work is participation: the work by the participation and interaction plan working group has been conducted in collaboration with the named specialists of all city divisions, organizations, the Youth Council, the Local Democracy Committee and representatives of companies. Training on participation and interaction has been provided for the personnel and working group members. The objectives of the plan have taken into consideration also future trainings as a part of developing participation and interaction. As part of drawing up the plan, robot phone call experiment and personnel survey have been conducted, as well as participation in the youth forum and other current events, such as the Oulu kylässä event.
Participation and interaction are part of everyday encounters and city planning
Participation and interaction are themes extensively prevalent not only in various everyday encounters, but also in different documents, programmes and objectives. The plan’s objectives and measures are, thus, linked to the City of Oulu’s other plan and programme work, for example, to open government’s action plan, the equality and functional equality plan, the welfare plan and to the goal-oriented plan concerning different age groups, such as the child-friendly municipality model.
Statement on the participation and interaction plan were asked from all boards, committees, councils and the Youth Council. Suggestions for development and additional comments provided in the statements were taken into consideration in the plan.
The development work of participation and interaction continues and activities are evaluated regularly. The residents’ and the stakeholders’ feedback and participation surveys are a way to develop activities: they are a central part of the participation work by the City of Oulu.
The participation and interaction plan is based on the City Strategy
The participation and interaction plan includes an appendix describing the objectives and measures that are based on the City Strategy. The City Strategy’s objective concerning participation is one of the central goals in participation and interaction plan: We strengthen the means of participation and influence for Oulu residents. The objectives and goals in the plan are taken into consideration in budgeting and in utilization planning. According to the plan, the monitoring of the objectives and measures is reported in 2024, 2027 and 2030. In charge of preparing the evaluation and monitoring are the members of the participation and interaction working group who take the monitoring forward to management groups and boards. The city’s joint evaluation report is compiled and summarized for the City Board to approve. In addition to this, the working group wishes to highlight the meaning of annual monitoring and evaluation as part of financial statements.
Announcement in plain language
The City of Oulu updated the participation and interaction plan
The City Board has approved the new City of Oulu’s participation and interaction plan this week. The plan describes how the residents in Oulu can participate in and influence the city’s matters. It has been prepared for 2023–2030.
Various people in the city have participated in making the plan. City employees have also received training on participation. The city has had multiple events where employees have met citizens.
City residents have the opportunity to give feedback on the plan the entire time it is in force.