Citizens' / User / Community Panels

Citizens' / Community / User Panels are a standing pool of people recruited for their views on an ongoing basis. It can be used to build a picture of local people’s views of services, strategies and issues.

Advantages

Adds credibility to any consultation process.
Helps you concentrate on issues from a user perspective.
Good way to ask larger numbers of people about a range of issues
Can track changes in views over time as it creates ongoing dialogue with users.
Panel can (and should) reflect the whole population
Can be used to examine any differences between people living in different areas
Can be a useful sounding board on which to test-out ideas and plans.
Can give feedback relatively quickly,

Disadvantages

Views of small groups with different needs might be lost - this might be rectified by using 'boost' panels to make sure these views are captured
Response rate - you need to keep your panel warm - perhaps by using modest incentives.
Some managers may think that once they have a user panel they don’t need to do any other form of consultation,
Users can get too close to the organisation and loose focus over time,
Won’t be effective without good input and commitment from management,

When to use

When you want to continuously monitor an 'audience's' opinion.
When you have a range of options that you need to 'test' with a wider audience.

A representative selection of local people is recruited through random selection (computerised use of the local electoral role is often used for this process). Panel sizes can vary from 300 to 3500 people depending on the size of local population. Surveys are sent out on a regular basis, often 4 times a year and usually cover a range of subjects.

Salford has a citizens' panel.

User Panels

A user panel is made up of a small group of service users along with one or two senior mangers (who can affect change and are decision makers);
Whereas a focus group usually only meets once, a user panel will meet on a regular basis over a longer period;
A user panel can act as an ‘early warning’ system for problems or issues that may arise and help form a collective view of possible solutions;
User panels draw on the expertise of service users to help develop services;
User panels can also be used to test out plans or changes to services before they go live.

A user panel will need to set clear objectives for the group, for example 'to make the service more friendly and easy to use'. The group will need to ensure access to key decision makers, either by their presence and commitment to the panel or by strong links to it.