Customer Engagement Scrutiny Review 2026

The Customer Scrutiny Panel reviewed how effectively we engage with customers, identifying barriers to participation and recommending improvements to increase awareness, inclusivity and the impact of customer involvement. The review also considered how we meet regulatory expectations for customer engagement.

The scrutiny review looked at several key areas, including:

• Promoting customer engagement opportunities
• Raising awareness of customer engagement across Citizen's teams
• Customer experience and involvement in decision-making
• Reaching underrepresented and harder-to-engage groups
• Compliance with regulatory expectations

What's working well

The review highlighted a number of strengths within Citizen's approach to customer engagement:

• A committed and knowledgeable Customer Engagement Team.
• A wide range of ways for customers to get involved.
• A strong focus on listening to customer feedback and improving services.
• Flexible engagement methods that help customers participate in ways that suit them.

Areas for improvement

The review also identified opportunities to strengthen engagement by:

• Increasing awareness of opportunities to get involved.
• Providing clearer feedback so customers can see how their views have made a difference.
• Raising the profile of the Customer Scrutiny Panel and its work.
• Involving customers earlier when developing new services and projects.
• Improving demographic information to understand who is not currently engaging.
• Providing additional support to help underrepresented communities take part.

The Customer Scrutiny Panel made 18 recommendations to help strengthen customer engagement across Citizen.

Improving communication

We'll:

• Better promote opportunities for customers to get involved.
• Improve customer newsletters and social media content.
• Share more "You Said, We Did" updates to demonstrate the impact of customer feedback.
• Publish easy-to-read summaries of Customer Scrutiny reviews.

Strengthening engagement

We'll also:

• Improve accessibility and local outreach.
• Involve customers earlier in projects and decision-making.
• Embed customer engagement across all Citizen teams.
• Improve how engagement activities are planned and delivered.
• Introduce clearer measures of success.
• Collect and use demographic information to understand participation.
• Set targets to increase involvement from underrepresented groups.

Since the review, Citizen has already made positive progress:

• The Citizens Together Hub continues to develop, providing more opportunities for customers to get involved and receive feedback.
• Stronger processes are in place to capture and use customer feedback.
• Awareness of customer engagement is increasing across the organisation.
• Citizen has a strong customer engagement framework and a committed team, providing solid foundations to increase participation, improve representation and strengthen community impact.