The empirical research reported in this book is based on a study commissioned by the NHS R&D Methodology Programme with the stated aim of providing information for policy makers on how best to make use of citizens’ time when members of the public are invited to discuss complex issues. A detailed final report of this evaluation study was prepared (Davies et al, 2005) and is available on the Methodology Programme website (www.pcpoh.bham.ac.uk/publichealth/nccrm/). An effective research evaluation of a complex policy initiative puts demands on the researchers to familiarise themselves with the context in which the new development is taking place and to develop an awareness of the intentions, hopes and fears of all parties. The various strands of work required by the commissioners were therefore assembled into three component parts. At the core was an ethnographic study, consisting of observations of the Citizens Council in session. There was an organisation study, which aimed to comment on the climate in which the Citizens Council initiative had arisen and to monitor its development. There was also the study of the citizens themselves, which explored the significance of the initiative from their point of view and examined the challenges, intended and unintended, that it generated for them. This appendix gives further details on each of these.

All aspects of the study were explained to Citizens Council members at their induction meeting in November 2002 and explicit consent was sought both for the ethnographic study and for interviews in a face-to-face setting. We worked in accordance with the British Psychological Society's Code of Conduct for psychologists conducting research with human participants in inviting all Citizens Council members to give written consent to participation in the project. Initially, 29 of the 30 original members gave this consent. However, in the fourth meeting, where consent forms were secured from the 10 new recruits to the Council, consent was also forthcoming from the one remaining member from the original group. Participants were advised that they could withdraw their data at any point. They were kept informed at all stages of the process and we debriefed them at the fourth meeting.