Ensure broad scope

Advantages

To help your topic receive as much coverage and support as possible within the political domain, it is important to think beyond targeting siloed government departments/agencies and take a broader approach to determining how and where priority might be given to it. For example, the impacts of drowning would affect the work of a number of government departments including health, finance, environment and climate, housing, transport and employment. This can be capitalised on through multi-sectoral collaboration, where stakeholders from a number of sectors with a common interest are linked, encouraging them to work together to achieve a common goal. Another approach is to identify existing government priorities and frame your topic to align with these. If work is already being done by government bodies towards achieving set goals, adding an additional parallel agenda item may seem both relevant and feasible by government representatives. Projects fare better when larger systems are receptive to them.  

Disadvantages

Determining who to involve may be an overwhelming task. It can be difficult to coordinate between different departments as they are likely to have different agendas and be working towards different goals. It is necessary to navigate this carefully and establish a clear, core goal that is equally relevant to everyone you are attempting to involve. Large-scale, ambitious goals may seem impressive but are often beyond the scope of local government. Here, it is necessary to keep your goals scaled-back, simple, relevant and achievable.