Residents happy with life but expect more from Council

Residents who are keen to see the results of the recent Community Satisfaction Survey can now do so via Council's website.

The survey was conducted in conjunction with IRIS Research, and saw over 300 locals contacted at random by phone to give their feedback on various aspects of Council and the city itself.

Results showed that residents are generally unhappy with the city's appearance, the maintenance of roads and footpaths, and the handling of the Civic Centre Project and BHP Billiton Foundation donation, however they are happy with Council's waste management, the Aquatic Centre, and the city's tourism and cultural facilities.

Broken Hill's residents are also, on average, happier with their lives than other Australian citizens.

An online survey was also held to try and gather additional data, however IRIS advised Council that they were forced to disregard the majority of the online data as it conflicted markedly with the randomly sourced and unbiased data gathered via the phone survey.

"IRIS regularly uses online surveys to complement phone surveys, however it didn't prove effective in Broken Hill," said Council's Manager Communications, Darrin Manuel.

"They contacted us and said the online results showed the worst negative response bias they'd encountered to date, which was a bit surprising.

"However it's important to note the data wasn't kept separate just because it was unusually negative. They informed us that they'd have done exactly the same thing if the online feedback had been unusually positive."

Mr Manuel said he understood the decision to keep the phone data largely separate from the online data when compiling a final report.

"IRIS used a very small amount of the online data to supplement the dataset for respondents in the 18-34 years range, but they're specialists in data and analytics, and we can see their logic in keeping the phone data largely separate.

"It's certainly not a case of Council simply removing answers they didn't like, or keeping any data a secret. Both reports have been noted by Councillors and staff, and are available on our website for anyone who is interested to take a look.

"Overall this process has been a learning experience given it hasn’t been undertaken since 2011, and it’s probably reinforced that Council must remain mindful that the views of the online community don't necessarily always reflect those of Broken Hill residents as a whole.”

Both Community Satisfaction Surveys along with an in-depth explanation from IRIS regarding the need to separate both datasets can be found here: https://www.brokenhill.nsw.gov.au/council/council-documents/community-satisfaction-survey-2018.