In our latest blog post, OSR Research Officer Nick discusses how public engagement shapes our work, specifically in relation to our research project about how individual members of the public use official statistics to make decisions that relate to their personal lives. This OSR research is delivered by the Policy Institute at King’s College London and Behavioural Insights Team and will be published in January (as discussed in a previous blog, “How do we use statistics in everyday life?”).
Here at the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR), we are increasingly recognising that involving the public in our work is crucial for ensuring statistics truly serve the public good. Because of that, we have begun exploring public engagement.
Public engagement is important and impactful
For us, public engagement is the process of involving and collaborating with those outside of government and statistics to share information, gather input and foster meaningful dialogue on issues that affect them. Public engagement is about more than just asking people for their opinions. It’s about making sure that the work we do is grounded in real experiences and needs. By involving the public, we can build on our own technical expertise to make sure our work is meaningful and useful to the very people we aim to serve.
OSR has begun engaging the public on our research
Recently, we spoke to a small group of people to find out what they thought of different aspects of our current research project exploring how people use statistics to make personal decisions. These discussions have shown us just how valuable public engagement can be in shaping our research to be more relevant and acceptable to the public.
In our public engagement sessions, we invited members of the public to share their thoughts on different aspects of our research proposal. We met with them virtually multiple times over the course of the projects, so that we could tell them how their advice had helped us and continue to seek their views. This included discussing how they felt about the life decisions we wanted to explore in our research, such as choosing a school for a child. We also asked for their feedback on survey questions we plan to use in the next stage of our research. While this was a light-touch approach to public engagement (a small group that met online for only an hour each time), we still got a lot from these discussions.
We found this approach very valuable
Public engagement is a powerful tool that enriches our work and fosters a collaborative spirit between OSR and the public. While this is relatively new for OSR, our recent sessions have demonstrated the real value of this approach. From this experience of public engagement, we have three main reflections:
- People wanted to be part of these discussions
- Public contributors are full of useful suggestions
- It is important to seek diverse perspectives
People wanted to be part of these discussions
Discussions about statistics and research have the potential to be dry. However, when we spoke to members of the public, they were enthusiastic about the research and appreciated the opportunity to contribute. For example, one of our public contributors said:
“If someone said to me, you are going to be involved in some statistics research, it seems like whether I will be able to do that? As a lay member of the public, maybe I don’t know?.. but it is easy… I would like to be involved in future opportunities.”
This quote shows how important it is to give people the opportunity to be involved in these types of discussions.
Public contributors are full of useful suggestions
Attendees provided valuable feedback on various ways to improve our research, which has already informed several key decisions in our project. For example, we originally planned to ask people about whether or not they used official statistics in choosing which school to send their child to. However, public contributors raised that not everyone actually gets to choose a school for their child:
“You might be able to have a parent that will look and say this is the school I want my child to go to based on their needs, based on the statistics. But the actual chances of them getting that school is very slim. So there may be people that feel that, yes, I can look the statistics, but then I have an inability to choose.”
Because of this advice, we changed the decision to be about which school to apply to, rather than which school to send a child to. This type of change helped our research be more relevant to members of the public.
It is important to seek diverse perspectives
Engaging with a diverse group of attendees allowed us to gather a wide range of viewpoints. For example, we heard from people whose first language was not English on how the statistics in the research could best be presented in a way that they could understand:
“[Statistics are] in the English and I have language barrier, so how can I like utilise that… In the bar diagram it’s ‘OK this bar is high and this bar is low’ so it’s easy to understand.”
This perspective led to sharing visual aids with participants in the first stage of our research rather than solely presenting a traditional statistical bulletin made up of prose. Doing so made our research more accessible to a broader audience, and allowed a wider range of participants to engage meaningfully.
We plan to use public engagement more going forward
The success of these public engagement sessions has reinforced our commitment to involving the public in OSR’s work. As part of this commitment, we are now part of the Public Engagement in Data Research Initiative (PEDRI). In addition, future research projects at OSR will build on the feedback received in this project, and we hope to undertake public engagement in key projects beyond research as well. In doing so, we will be aligning with our view that serving the public good means treating official statistics as public assets; this involves allowing the public to understand and engage with our work. Through public engagement about our work at OSR, we can ensure it is more transparent, trustworthy and responsive to the needs of the public.
If you would like to learn more or even become a public contributor yourself, please contact us at research.function@statistics.gov.uk. We look forward to hearing from you.