Citizen Engagement

Through delivering a range of online and face to face activities including focus groups, surveys, interviews, advisory groups, and discussion forums, the Citizen Engagement Team engages diverse audiences from across Wales to support the work of Senedd Committees.

The team’s engagement work means that Members in Committees are able to consider the views and experiences of service users, frontline workers and people with a lived experience when making recommendations to the Welsh Government.

All published engagement findings can be found on relevant Committee inquiry webpages.

Please see complete list of current Committees here.

Committees commission the Citizen Engagement Team to understand the attitudes, behaviours and opinions of people with lived experience, frontline workers and service users, and to obtain insights into and understand their experiences. This insight supports Committees in:​​​​​​​

• understanding a wider environment;
• applying contextual understanding to policy, legislation or finances;
• scrutinising the effectiveness of policy, legislation or financial decisions;
• evaluating the effectiveness of policy; and
• understanding people's beliefs, values and attitudes.

Your voice is very important in the work of the Senedd. Taking part in citizen engagement activity is one way of using your voice.

Citizen engagement activity can include focus groups, advisory groups, surveys, in-depth interviews, discussion forums, deliberative workshops and mini publics, both face to face and online.

Using your voice to contribute to citizen engagement activity will provide a Committee with a rich understanding of the views and ideas of those with lived experience of the matters under consideration.

It is important that a Committee’s work is informed by the expertise of people with lived experience. It adds value to evidence gathering and provides the Committee with a sound evidence base for their work.

If you decide to take part in citizen engagement activity you will be supported by the Citizen Engagement Team throughout the inquiry.

Where relevant, the Citizen Engagement Team will share a brief and/or guide with you ahead of the activity including relevant information, for example, topics to be discussed.

The Citizen Engagement Team will share updates on the progress of the inquiry throughout the stages of the inquiry.

You will also be able to follow the progress of the inquiry on the Committee’s webpage.

If you require further support relating to your contribution to the activity, this can be discussed with the Citizen Engagement Team.

Following the inquiry, in some cases, you might be invited to watch the Senedd debate in the Senedd and meet members of the Committee.

Participating in citizen engagement activity is voluntary and you may withdraw at any time.

All citizen engagement activity contributions are anonymised and no identifiable information will be shared publicly.

To understand how your contribution and information will be used, please view our privacy notice.

You can read more on how public engagement can support effectiveness in committee work in an article written by Professor Diana Stirbu, London Metropolitan University. The article has been published in The Parliamentarian 2022: click here to view this issue.