Media Release

2 November 2009

Council utilises new and cost-effective ways to seek residents’ views

Rodney District Council employed a new approach this year to seek residents’ views on the services and activities RDC provides by enabling local residents to give their views online as well as by post.

“In the past, the measurement of residents’ satisfaction levels for services provided by the Council was primarily undertaken by telephone surveys carried out by external consultants,” explains RDC Research Manager Carol Hayward.

“However, for the 2009 survey, residents were randomly selected using the Council’s property database and encouraged to register for the new email-based Rodney Citizens’ Panel. Around half of the survey responses came through the new Citizens’ Panel which allows us to contact participants directly to give them the results and feedback, and also to ask them for their views on other topics throughout the year.”

This year’s survey measured satisfaction of a number of services and activities along with information about how important people feel those services/activities are to their quality of life, and which are most in need of improvement.

Activities were also included that the Council is not directly responsible for to help give a greater sense of perspective on “front of mind” and strategic issues in the community that affect overall quality of life rather than just focusing on specific Council ones.

“The results are largely positive, with most Council services or activities receiving results of people being satisfied or neutral. However, activities identified as both being most important and in need of improvement include road and footpath maintenance; being clean and graffiti free. Other key community concerns include public transport, crime, facilities for children and teenagers and job prospects.”

Ms Hayward says the survey also looked at customer service and communications issues with a number of themes emerging from these results.

“It appears that the Council manages or responds well to issues relating to core business such as footpaths, streetlights and water-related issues. But respondents believe it copes less well with more complex aspects such as consents / compliance, Council governance and in dealing with problems raised.”

Within the communications section, key issues were raised about the Council not being open and honest. There was also the concern it was not listening to local residents – apart from the “usual suspects”.

A summary of the 2009 Annual Residents Survey is now available on the RDC website at http://www.rodney.govt.nz

ENDS

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