Citizens' Panels
Description
Citizens' panels involve a representative sample of the local population, who have agreed to take part in consultation activity. They can involve between 500 to 3,000 people.
Potential participants are normally recruited by random sampling, or door to door recruitment. You should try to make sure that panel membership is broadly representative of the population. Consider issues like age, gender, ethnic origin and disability.
Panel members are then asked to complete surveys on a regular basis. You can choose to ask the whole panel to fill in the survey, or target particular groups – such as older people or minority ethnic groups.
Often, citizens’ panels are set up jointly, for example by Community Planning partners. This means that surveys can explore a range of different issues, and consultation takes place in a co-ordinated way.
Generally, citizens’ panels can achieve high response rates and are fairly cost effective. They can also measure whether people’s views are changing over time. This can help to assess the impact of service developments.
What do I need?
To organise a citizens’ panel, you should:
• Be clear about why you want to set up a panel and how you will use it
• Gain commitment from your own organisation
• Explore whether other agencies and departments wish to participate
• Develop a clear method for recruiting panel members
• Consider equalities issues and representation on the panel
You will need:
• Someone to manage the database
• Agreement on how survey content will be developed
• A way of providing feedback to participants
• Commitment to taking action based on survey feedback.
Find out more…
There are many examples of citizens panels across the UK. Find out more about Aberdeen Citizens Panel and other panels developed in Scotland.
