Agenda item

Residents' Survey

To consider the results of the 2017 Residents’ Survey.

 

 

 

Minutes:

The Commission received a report and presentation briefing them on the Residents’ Survey results 2017 and communication plan.

 

The Resident’s Survey was undertaken by QA Research in January and February 2017; the report updated members on the outcomes, trends and areas of interest. The 2017 results were fairly static, which was typical of tracking surveys as it was unusual to see significant changes year on year.

The biggest change since the 2014 Residents Survey was the change from a postal survey to telephone survey. 1801 surveys were completed with 1,501 via telephone and 294 face-to-face. QA Research had analysed the responses and were able to generate the findings of different demographic and wards. The results had been  analysed at ward level and would be sent to members to use.

Of the findings within the survey:

  • 90% of residents were satisfied that Bracknell Forest was a good place to live, with greenspaces, council run sports and leisure facilities and highways amongst the reasons why. It was the first time that highways had been listed in this category.
  • 96% of residents said that there was strong community cohesion, this was an upwards trend and a really positive outcome.
  • 20% of residents currently participated in regular volunteering which was at the same level as 2014. This was against the national trend which showed volunteer levels as decreasing.
  • 19% felt there could be improvements or changes to road maintenance and infrastructure.
  • 12% thought there could be improvements or change mechanisms for communicating with residents and acting on their concerns.
  • Frequently used services had the highest levels of satisfaction with many residents not forming an opinion on services that were not often used. This did not tally with specific service user surveys.
  • Only 9% continued to feel that they were ‘not well informed at all’.
  • The demand for online and social media outstripped the current usage.
  • Popularity for email as a method of communication outstripped its current usage. 32% preferred email communication vs. 10% who actually used email communication.
  • Connectivity across the Borough had increased since 2014.

 

The findings of the survey would be taken to all Departmental Management Teams and would feed into service plans and the transformation programme. The findings would also be shared with the Parish and Town Councils’ Liaison Group on the 19 July.

In response to the Members’ questions, the following points were made:

 

  • The questions within the survey were open questions which did not prompt answers and allowed residents to respond specifically to the questions.
  • The survey asked how often specific facilities such as South Hill Park, were used. Specific information in respect of the arts and culture aspects of the Residents’ Survey was sought.
  • The voluntary service target had been benchmarked across the Country.
  • Some of the indicators were in line with the previous national Place Survey. However national benchmarking was proving harder with many local authorities moving away from undertaking resident surveys.
  • 58% of Hanworth residents appreciated South Hill Park.
  • Over the past years a number of public consultations had been held where residents could influence decisions. Adult and Children’s Social Care had also been working with service users to help develop and design their Communication Strategy. The Council needed to be better at feeding back the changes made through resident influences to the residents.
  • The Citizen and Customer Contact project was looking at increasing and pushing email communication to residents. A business case was currently being put together to introduce the Gov Delivery email communication platform. This had been subject to a successful trial in libraries recently with greater attendance at events due to the use of emails. The system allowed anonymous and group specific emails to be sent and fed back whether the email had been opened, deleted and read.
  • With the e+ card the Council already had a good email database.
  • Work was underway to determine which services were best placed to send email correspondence. It was thought that sending Town and Country electronically could be a good idea as it would be cheaper than distributing paper copies. Paper copies could be made available in public buildings in addition.
  • The reasons for satisfaction within Parish and Town Council areas had not been asked for within the survey. This was a learning point for the next survey which would be adapted to include this.
  • It was thought that the reasons for dissatisfaction within Binfield could be due to planning and not being able to influence the Council, which were very much linked.
  • The participates for the telephone survey were randomly selected to meet the representative demographic sample. The interviews would continue until the representative target was met, this was set out within the source documents from QA Research who undertook the survey on the Council’s behalf. The first question asked in the survey filtered whether the resident fitted the required demographic quota or not.
  • Political groups were not taken into account at any point in the survey.
  • Although South Hill Park was not a service directly provided by the Council, it had been included within the survey under a question regarding facilities supported by the Council.

 

The Chairman thanked Kirsty Hunt for her presentation and the work that had been undertaken on the Residents’ survey and commented that the group were looking forward in seeing the outcomes of the survey filtered down and actioned across the Council’s services. 

 

Supporting documents:

 

Contact Information

Democratic services

Email: committee@bracknell-forest.gov.uk