Public Services and Ethnic Minorities 31/07/00 Although the People's Panel was set up to find out more about what consumers expect from public services, it was found that the proportion of Panel members coming from ethnic minorities was too small to analyse their views in detail. With this in mind, a booster panel was recruited with 830 new members from ethnic minority backgrounds. Findings from the first research using this booster have recently been published. Fewer ethnic minority respondents as a whole say public services fail to meet their expectations than the main People's Panel. However, there are differences within ethnic minority groups, 43% of Black respondents say public services fall short of their expectations compared with 28% of Asian respondents. The largest difference of satisfaction is in respect of council housing. This probably results from the concentration of ethnic minorities in deprived areas and in poorer housing (+29% net satisfaction among ethnic minorities and +52% among the Panel as a whole). This is to be investigated further. Services most poorly rated for recognising different needs include the courts, police, local councils and the immigration service. In contrast, ethnic minority respondents are most satisfied with the Post Office, electricity companies, GPs and education services. Overall, it was found that Black people tend to feel much less involved in the community than Asian respondents, a finding consistent with research MORI has done for many local authorities across the UK. One in six (16%) of ethnic minority respondents say they have experienced racial discrimination, abuse or harassment when contacting a public service. Ethnic minority groups agree that, on balance, new technology will make dealing with government easier. Given a choice between new technologies, members of ethnic minority groups would prefer to use the phone, although less so than the Panel as a whole. 59% would use the phone to deal with the government, compared with 72% of the original People's Panel. The Cabinet Office plans to run at least one more wave of research with the ethnic booster during 2000 and is at present considering the line of questioning. For further details visit the People's Panel website at www.servicefirst.gov.uk Interviews with the 830 new panel members were conducted face to face by MORI between 13 November 1999 and 23 January 2000.