A recent survey indicates most Palmerston North residents feel Palmerston North City Council (PNCC) is performing well.

The Annual Residents’ Survey gives participants an opportunity to rate the Council on services and facilities, governance and reputation, and the value for money it pro-vides.

Heather Shotter, Chief Executive, said customer service is a key focus for Council.

“Council is focused on being driven and enabling. We’re finding ways to do things simpler, faster and better, to deliver customer-centric services in everything we do.”

It was evident through the results that many residents are unaware of the broad range and extent of Council provided services.

“While residents are satisfied with the services that they’re aware Council provide, there seems to be a lack of connection with Council in other areas.

“Council is carrying out further research to determine how residents view Council and the city, and where we need to build awareness of Council services,” said Ms. Shot-ter.

This year, 800 residents were randomly selected from the electoral roll with the results educating Council’s current reputation in the community.

More than half of residents (59%) are satisfied or very satisfied with Council’s overall performance

Many residents reported being satisfied with Council, while 30 per cent responded as neutral. A further 11 per cent were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied.

Residents indicated reasonable satisfaction with Council’s leadership, 61 per cent were at least satisfied with our financial management and the level of trustworthiness.

Results showed strong approval for Council services and facilities with areas such as water, recycling, playgrounds and libraries all receiving satisfaction ratings of 75 per cent or above.

The survey also revealed residents don’t often think about how Council services are delivering value for money.

“When we tell people, Council provides the average household with clean drinking wa-ter for under five dollars a week. It’s only then that they realise they’re getting great val-ue for money from Council,” said Ms. Shotter.

This is the first time Council has conducted this survey from the electoral roll as op-posed to selecting participants from the phonebook. So direct comparisons to previous years can’t be made.

The full Annual Residents’ Survey report is available on Council’s website: pncc.govt.nz/council-city/about-council/council-surveys/

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