People living and working in deprived areas have been drafted in by ministers to help shape the government's urban regeneration policy.

Urban regeneration minister Lord Falconer revealed the make-up of the new Community Forum that will advise the neighbourhood renewal unit and shake up the way Whitehall deals with the problems of Britain's inner-cities.

The aim of the forum will be to get people who Falconer described as "being at the sharp end" helping to formulate policy at national level. Ministers hope the group, which includes a housewife, a priest and a former motorbike despatch rider will also highlight what the unit is doing in their communities.

It will work directly with civil servants at the department for transport local government and the regions and held its first meeting with ministers on Wednesday.

The Oldham riots had shown the government was failing in to help people in many deprived areas, the minister said. He also pledged that the group would be listened to and that their recommendations would be acted upon.

"There are issues with housing, racism, crime and young people that need to be addressed. I guarantee this is not going to be a talking shop," Falconer said.

"If we only got the answers we wanted then there would be no point in going ahead with this. We want them to be as outspoken and as radical as they think merits the occasion."

Delivering improvements in deprived inner-cities would fail unless the people the government aimed to help were involved, Falconer argued.

"Neighbourhood renewal won't work unless the people who live in the most deprived areas get involved. They've got to tell us honestly when policy is working and when it's not working," he said.

He was at a loss to understand why a simple idea of asking people if they were getting the help they needed had not been thought of until now.

"I haven't the foggiest why it's not happened until now. We've always focused on the neighbourhood strategy. Urban regeneration has been around for decades and I don't understand why it hasn't been done before. It's a good idea and it should have been done before," he said.

Several members of the group expressed surprise at having been chosen after having told the interview panel they would give ministers plenty of straight talking.

Group member Camille Ade-John, who works for a regeneration trust in Birmingham, was optimistic that the group would achieve change and warned the Whitehall mandarins were likely to get a shock.

"The group is made up of people who are used to working with little or no resources and getting results. They don't have time to waste and don't mince their words. Ministers and civil servants probably aren't used to dealing with people who operate at the sharp end - they don't know what they've let themselves in for," she said.