ADR England Public Insights Panel: the value of public engagement for data programmes

Public Insight Panels: An important role to play in the work of ADR UK

The panel is jointly managed by me and external colleagues from our delivery partner, The Social Agency, an independent research insights agency, and I’m extremely proud of the value it’s brought to the world of data in such a short time. This group of public representatives, drawn from a range of communities and locations across England, plays a critical role in the development and delivery of our work.

Meeting every two months, the group provides an open forum for our team and wider partners to share plans, ideas and research findings with and receive feedback from our biggest stakeholder group: the public.

As we move into 2026, I’ve looked back at some of the highlights and accomplishments from the last two years:

• May 2024: The panel discussed terminology in justice research to inform the creation of You Be The Judge, a new game in partnership with Sheffield University. The game launched on World Day for International Justice in July 2024. The group also input into our plans for the ADR UK Connecting Society podcast, launched in Autumn 2024, to communicate about the work of ADR UK in an engaging and accessible way.

• July 2024: The panel’s feedback informed the work of our first ADR England intern, Sara Duru, authoring a Young Person’s Version of a Research Paper. This research summary is based on analysis from children’s health and education data using the ECHILD flagship dataset.

• September 2024: The panel provided views on the use of AI by the Ministry of Justice to digitise their free-text records.

• November 2024: The panel viewed an early screening of explainer videos being produced by ADR UK partner, the Office of National Statistics (ONS), to inform some the content produced for the public on the ONS YouTube channel.

• February 2025: The panel discussed priority areas of focus for the Office for Statistics Regulation’s new strategy on strengthening trust and confidences in statistics which was published in November 2025.

• April 2025: The panel reviewed the content of a ADR UK blog jointly authored by me and by Tom Curran from our public panel delivery partner from The Social Agency, to share learnings so far with the wider data infrastructure community.

• July 2025: The panel informed the work of the ADR UK 2025 summer intern, Rianna Romeo, on informing a Young Person’s Version of a Research Paper, which is a research summary of labour market differences between immigrant and UK-born employees, published in August.

• September 2025: The panel offered insight into how the Financial Data Service (FINDS) can engage the public on the work they do to provide high-quality financial data to the UK research community.

• November 2025: The panel shared perspectives with the Kids' Environment and Health Cohort on the value of the data on offer through the project, with specific feedback on research regarding overcrowding.

Looking ahead

This brings us to 2026, as we say goodbye to our original panel members and start welcoming new members of the public. Our first panel meeting featuring members of this new cohort is coming up in March, featuring presentations from the Office for Statistics Regulation and researchers from UCL.

The ADR England Public Insights Panel is here to support those using data for research and statistics purposes. If you would like to meet with the panel to support your work, complete this expression of interest form to join our next session.

You can find out more about our public engagement programme or ask us a question about our work on the website.