Agenda item

REPORT OF THE SERVICE DIRECTOR – PLACE

To advise Cabinet of the key findings and action points arising from the 2022 District Wide Survey.

RESOLVED:

(1)   That Cabinet commented on and noted the key findings and observations from the District Wide Survey.

(2)   That Cabinet noted the results will be considered by the Leadership Team in conjunction with the Executive Members and an action plan produced.

REASON FOR DECISION: To ensure that Cabinet is aware of the results and any trends from previous surveys and how the results will be used to inform future service delivery.

Audio recording – 15 minutes 09 seconds

The Communications Manager presented the report entitled ‘District Wide Survey 2022’ and advised Members of the following:

·         800 residents had been surveyed by phone earlier this year and results are largely in line with national trends and similar to previous survey results.

·         In terms of areas of strength, satisfaction with North Herts as a place to live is very high and contrary to national trends, satisfaction with the Council is above national trends and has stabilised from the downward trend between 2013-2019, agreement that the Council offers value for money is above national levels and satisfaction with Waste and Recycling has seen a significant increase on the last survey results.

·         Areas of focus include monitoring resident views of the running of the council, as the percentage that think it is getting worse is larger than the percentage who think it is getting better. The top three themes from residents feedback were: a) improving the look of a local area, b) improving street cleaning and c) improvement in communications that are clear and transparent.

·         Satisfaction with street cleaning, benefits and housing services have all recorded their lowest levels in this survey.

·         For those residents who have recently made contact with the Council, satisfaction with the service received was at its lowest on record and dissatisfaction to the highest.

·         In terms of areas to explore further, satisfaction scores on whether the Council ‘consults and engages the community’ are to be addressed through the Community Consultation Strategy 2022-27.

·         Royston residents provided the lowest score with regard to the Council offering value for money and similarly scored lower than the rest of the district when it came to the Council involving, consulting and engaging residents, so worth monitoring this.

·         Potential new forms of customer contact, including a ‘live chat’ option on the Council website’, were another area for the Council’s Customer Service team to explore.

Councillor Ruth Brown advised that the trend in Royston residents has been ongoing for many years and there is a section of the community that feels distant from North Herts, mainly due to the location of the town near South Cambridgeshire border and the open countryside space between it and other towns in North Herts. She hoped that developing the Place narrative would help the Council rectify these issues. 

In response to  a question from Councillor Keith Hoskins, the Communications Manager advised that they would need to look into whether there was a correlation between the decline in public satisfaction with services and the staffing availability due to the pandemic and would report back outside of the meeting.

The Chair noted that this information would be helpful for Councillors, as a narrative could be built around this. The Chair thanked the Communications Manager for the work put into conducting the survey and the presentation of the results for Members to action.

Councillor Elizabeth Dennis-Harburg, as Chair, proposed and Councillor Ruth Brown seconded and, following a vote, it was:

RESOLVED:

(1)  That Cabinet commented on and noted the key findings and observations from the District Wide Survey.

(2)  That Cabinet noted the results will be considered by the Leadership Team in conjunction with the Executive Members and an action plan produced.

REASON FOR DECISION: To ensure that Cabinet is aware of the results and any trends from previous surveys and how the results will be used to inform future service delivery.