Community satisfaction survey provides valuable insights for council

People are most happy with the region’s outdoor spaces and community buildings, and community support and culture according to a recent survey.

Results from Central Highlands Regional Council’s biennial community survey were released this week giving council valuable insight into what’s working and what needs improvement.

The survey, conducted by independent market research consultants Enhance Research, canvassed 402 people in the region during March with the demographic spread across age, gender and location.

Mayor Kerry Hayes thanked people who gave their time to be part of the survey.

‘We sincerely value the views of people living in the region because it’s so useful to round out our data and help us plan where to place more effort,’ he said.

‘This year we changed the questions to make sure they were relevant to local government and gave us a better, more realistic benchmark on which to base our future performance.

‘Of particular interest are the drivers of satisfaction—basically what’s important to people that makes them either satisfied or not with council’s management performance,’ the mayor explained.

The survey showed customer service, and communication and information sharing are what people consider the two most important areas, whereas disaster management and environmental management are not of high importance.

‘The areas we need to focus on are those things that people think are important, but feel we don’t perform well in,’ the mayor said.

‘This year it’s transparent information sharing, responding to feedback, and councillor’s engagement with their community.’

When it comes to roads, rates and rubbish—the typical local government mantra, Central Highlands gets mixed reviews.

‘Road maintenance continues to cause discontent,’ the mayor said.

‘Half of those surveyed consider they don’t get value for money; citing poor roads, the cost of water and not having an understanding where their money is spent.

‘We do know that we’re delivering more capital projects than ever before and we need to make sure that it’s spent in the right areas.

‘However, our performance in rubbish and recycling performed relatively high even though, surprisingly, this service does not rate highly in importance.’

Mayor Hayes said the survey results will be incorporated with other data and considered when setting council’s operational priorities over the next two years.

Download the community survey report.