Participation Inquiry Citizens' Panel
A Citizens’ Panel is an innovative democratic tool used all over the world.
It brings together a randomly selected group of people who broadly represent the entire community.
The people who attend learn about issues, discuss them with one another, and then make recommendations about what should happen and how things should change.
The Citizens’ Panel will meet for two full weekends at the Scottish Parliament, Friday evening to Sunday:
- 28 to 30 October
- 18 to 20 November
The Citizens’ Panel will also meet online on three shorter evening sessions.
4,800 household addresses from across all eight Parliamentary regions of Scotland were randomly selected from the Royal Mail address database to receive letters of invitation to participate in the Citizens’ Panel.
Once registration closed, 19 people were randomly selected from those who registered their interest, to take part in the event. This random selection was weighted to make sure that there are people from all across the community attending.
Anyone aged 16 and over by the close of registrations, who is normally resident in Scotland and who lives full or part time at an address that had received this invitation could apply to take part, with a few exceptions.
Recommendations from the panel will be considered by the Committee, alongside evidence from focus groups and written submissions. The Committee will then produce proposals on how the Scottish Parliament can improve collaboration with under-represented groups.