Introduction
The Residents Survey is used to measure what people think of the area in which they live, what they think about SDC services, and the way the District Council works. This survey replaced the Place Survey scrapped by the Government in mid 2010.
The questionnaire included many 2008 Place Survey questions, with additional questions in relation to, for example, customer access. Primarily, the questionnaire asked questions on SDC services, rather than for the public sector as a whole, which the Place Survey concentrated on.
The topic areas of the survey were the local area in general, local decision making, service satisfaction, usage of services, information / Council in general, volunteering, community safety, and contacting the Council.
It is able to track changes in perception over time and to identify any gaps between current service levels and customer expectatons. It is a bi-annual survey.
The survey findings will also be used by the Council to help establish its priorities for the future and improving its services.
This document contains the findings from the 2010 SDC Residents Survey.
Locality Highlights: these compare localities against each other to find the differences in perception, as well as comparing the attitudes of residents in 2010 with their thoughts in 2008.
Methodology
The methodology developed for the Residents Survey used the Place Survey as a template. A copy of the questionnaire is included in the appendix of the report. All questionnaires were distributed and returned through the UK Royal Mail postal system. Participants were able to request a translated version of the survey in other languages or an alternative format (large print) on request.
The survey was conducted via postal self-completion questionnaires. The survey was drawn randomly from a list of 5,000 addresses from the unedited electoral role which was the closest database of addresses to the Postcode Address File (PAF) used in the Place Survey. The methodology included a reminder mailing to be implemented within the prescribed timescale between the first week of November to December 21st 2010.
1,877 questionnaires were returned in the timescale allowed (November to December 2010), from a mailing of 5,000. 52 questionnaires of the original mailing were returned, where the address was inaccessible, gone away, refused to complete, too old, etc. A response rate of 38% was achieved. The response rate was affected by the extremely cold weather and the disruption this caused towards the end of the survey period and problems at Stratford Royal Mail Sorting Office which meant post was delayed getting out. Some items of post took five weeks to get to the address.
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