NEWS RELEASES
How you think the Council runs things
8th July 2004
HOW satisfied residents are with the way Horsham District Council runs things has just been assessed.
There are numerous ways in which public and Council exchange information on a regular basis, however in 2000 the Government brought in new rules requiring all councils in the land to carry out ‘satisfaction surveys’ every three years so that opinions can be given a clear national perspective.
The latest of these was undertaken in the Horsham District by an independent market research company in the Autumn of 2003 and their findings have just been published.
Nationally, there appears to be a ten per cent decline in overall satisfaction levels whilst across West Sussex the average for all district authorities has fallen from 66% to 54%.
However, while the report shows that the Horsham District’s rating has slipped back along with the others, it remains high at 65% compared with other councils in the county, having only dropped three percentage points before any weighting to the results was applied.
The general decline in public confidence can be explained in part by the significant debate about Council Tax that was taking place at the time of the survey.
There is also increased expectation about provision of services and there is still some confusion about which services are provided by district and which by county councils.
There was another factor too. This time the Government brought in new measures to take into account age, gender and deprivation in each locality, so like for like comparisons with the 2000 survey are hard to achieve.
Looking at the breakdown of figures, people in the Horsham District were satisfied with recycling facilities, litter collection and waste services. They expressed greater satisfaction with sports and leisure services and gave a big thumbs up for parks and open spaces.
The sharpest decline in the District Council’s results was in the handling of complaints. Of 1,522 people surveyed, 264 had made a complaint in the previous twelve months and 26% of them said that they were not satisfied with the process.
But looking deeper into the statistics it is noticeable that by far the largest number of complaints had come from refuse collection and recycling at a time when the Acorn recycling and refuse scheme was being introduced.
These problems have been dealt with carefully and systematically and it is now a fact that, thanks to the ongoing support of residents, the Acorn scheme is running smoothly and with outstanding results.
The three yearly satisfaction surveys, required by the Government, can only be ‘snapshots’ of what people are saying and thinking at any one time, nevertheless the results of this latest report will undoubtedly help the Council to improve services in the future.
Full details can be found in the Council’s Local Performance Plan for 2004.
Ends
Note to editors:
On Friday 2 July 2004, the Local Government Chronicle published an article entitled ‘Residents are more dissatisfied.’
It summarised the overall national results by council type, the percentage change since 2000/01 and the upper median and lower quartile
The table published below confirms Horsham District Council’s strong position significantly in the upper quartile of performance, having experienced only a 6% reduction in performance compared with 10% or 12% nationally.
Taking everything into account, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with the way the local authority runs things?
| % Satisfied |
2000/01 |
2003/4 |
Change between surveys |
|
National Average |
65 |
55 |
-10 |
|
District Councils |
68 |
56 |
-12 |
|
Upper quartile |
60 |
50 |
-10 |
|
Horsham District Council |
71 |
65 |
-6 |
CONTACT: Richard Morris, Communications Manager
(01403) 215549