YourSay community panel

Pillar: Community, Planning
Lead directorate: CMTEDD

Overview

The YourSay Community Panel has made it easy for you to have your say and help shape Canberra’s future. Joining this online panel gives you another way to share your views on a wide range of topics and informs our decision-making. Input received through the YourSay Community Panel helps shape the policies, programs and services that make Canberra a great place to live. It will also allow us to test new ideas with a statistically representative sample of the Canberra community.

Benefits

This initiative helps determine current priorities and emerging issues. It offers a way forward for enhanced citizen participation in decision-making and policy development. The YourSay Community Panel complements the YourSay Community Conversations website, which will continue to be our primary place online for community conversations about particular issues. In contrast, members of the YourSay Community Panel will regularly be asked for views and opinions on a whole range of topics.

Status update

Date	Update
March 2021	The YourSay Community Panel enables the ACT Government to undertake research and engagement activities with a statistically representative sample of the Canberra community, based on a demographic profile of each member – e.g. age, gender, and suburb/region. With over 4,700 members, of which around 85% are active participants, it is one of the most engaged online communities. Average survey participation rates have been well above industry benchmarks, with about 40% of members participating in each round of research. And overall satisfaction with the quality of surveys is very high at over 90%. Up until the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, the Panel was already providing the ACT Government with an enhanced capacity to engage with Canberrans and help inform a range of policy issues such as the development of the Wellbeing Framework, guide communications and evaluate service performance. Since the pandemic commenced, the Panel has become an essential tool in guiding the ACT Government’s policy response to the areas of highest need within the community, such as mental health, education and unemployment. The results have also helped the Chief Health Officer (CHO) understand community attitudes and mood around the easing of restrictions, and to ensure that public health messaging is relevant to how Canberrans act and feel.

Date

Update

March 2021

The YourSay Community Panel enables the ACT Government to undertake research and engagement activities with a statistically representative sample of the Canberra community, based on a demographic profile of each member – e.g. age, gender, and suburb/region. With over 4,700 members, of which around 85% are active participants, it is one of the most engaged online communities.

Average survey participation rates have been well above industry benchmarks, with about 40% of members participating in each round of research. And overall satisfaction with the quality of surveys is very high at over 90%.

Up until the beginning of COVID-19 pandemic, the Panel was already providing the ACT Government with an enhanced capacity to engage with Canberrans and help inform a range of policy issues such as the development of the Wellbeing Framework, guide communications and evaluate service performance.

Since the pandemic commenced, the Panel has become an essential tool in guiding the ACT Government’s policy response to the areas of highest need within the community, such as mental health, education and unemployment.

The results have also helped the Chief Health Officer (CHO) understand community attitudes and mood around the easing of restrictions, and to ensure that public health messaging is relevant to how Canberrans act and feel.