Involving the public in difficult trade-offs and strategic priorities

The Legal Services Board (LSB) is developing a new strategy for legal services regulation. It wanted to understand the needs and priorities of members of the public to inform the development of the strategy. Under ordinary circumstances they might have wanted to run some workshops with a cross-section of consumers … but of course this was not going to be possible during the Summer of 2020. Instead, Community Research designed and ran a deliberative online forum with 41 members of the public from diverse backgrounds, roughly reflective of the population of England and Wales.

We asked them to consider difficult issues and trade-offs, such as whether regulation should focus more on legal services that the majority of the population use, or more on legal services that a small number of vulnerable consumers use.

They came up trumps! Further proof that with time, information and the opportunity, non expert people can reach thoughtful and considered opinions which really help to bring the voice of the community into the heart of strategic decision making. This is a great example of informed dialogue (deliberative) research working effectively online.

We produced a range of outputs to bring the findings to life. Click on the links to view the full report, video clips from participants, and our infographic summarising the findings.