The Highland Council is to form a Highland Citzens' Panel to gauge representative views of the Highland population on Council services and spending priorities.
The Council will switch the current spending on externally commissioning its public performance survey each year to funding the panel and surveying it instead. The panel will exist alongside other methods of asking the public their views including: ward forums; liaison with community councils and community groups; various customer surveys; and supporting specific arrangements such as tenant participation; Highland Youth Voice and Parent Forums in schools.
The move is seen as reinforcing the Council's commitment to engaging and improving the Council's communication with the public. The panel could also be used by public sector partners.
Panels will be made up from a sample of residents from the local population, who have agreed to participate in consultation activity on an ongoing basis. The panel aims to be representative of the population and for Highland is likely to consist of around 1400 people, gathering views from a representative range of people living across the Highlands.
Panel members will be asked to complete postal, on-line or telephone surveys or participate in focus groups on specific issues, such as budgets.
Councillor Carolyn Wilson, Chairman of the Resources Committee, said: "Citizens' panels are particularly useful for local councils as they can provide assurance to members that the views provided are representative of the population as a whole. By engaging panel members for more than one year, views over time can be tracked. Panels tend to generate high response rates to consultations and are a quick and easy resource to access."
Already 24 of the 32 Scottish local councils operate a panel.