2016 Report

In November and December 2016, Grey District Council arranged for the annual Resident Satisfaction Survey to be carried out, which measures public satisfaction with Council's performance, services and facilities as outlined in our Long Term Plan.

The results have been collated by the independent contractor, Opinions Market Research Limited, and were presented to Council at their meeting on Monday 13 March 2017.

This year we also asked some questions about how residents and businesses currently use the internet. This information will help us in the development Digital Enablement Action Plan, which is part of the Community Economic Development Strategy, and will be aimed at helping businesses in our District to connect more with the internet and realise the benefits it can provide.

Councillors received the results positively. There are many areas in which the Council is performing very well and the results provide information on matters which could benefit from more Council attention or resources. Results from these surveys are invaluable when it comes to Council planning processes and ensuring we stick to our vision of the Grey District being a great place in which to live, work, play and invest.

We would like to say a big thank you to everyone who took the time to complete the survey; your input is appreciated and valued.

2016 Resident Satisfaction Survey Report (PDF, 1.3MB)

Here's a brief snapshot of some of the results:

• Satisfaction with overall performance of Council over the last 12 months - 83% satisfied (2015: 81%).
• The top three Council facilities residents are most satisfied with are our parks and reserves (91%), swimming pools (83%) and then libraries (82%).
• A large majority of residents, 82%, are satisfied with the information they receive from Council (2015: 81%).
• Feedback suggests the younger residents are turning more towards digital communications to receive information from Council, ie social media and the website. The newsletter does, however, remain an important way for us to get information out with a 52% preference for the quarterly newsletter.
• More residents feel the District is a great place to live, 94% agreeing in 2016 versus 91% in 2015. The top reasons remained the same as last year, namely sense of community, lifestyle and access to the outdoors.
• Some of the areas residents thought needed improvement or expressed dissatisfaction with include maintenance, cost of rates and red tape/bureaucracy.
• The survey also benchmarked Grey District Council against a number of other local authorities and Paul Pretorius, CEO, is pleased that yet again our Council showed impressive results in overall satisfaction with Council performance (83%) and satisfaction with performance of Mayor and Councillors (86%).