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Survey shows residents are happy with Council's performance
Every three years Tasman District Council surveys residents’ views on a range of services delivered by the Council. The survey is undertaken by an independent agency, the National Research Bureau, and has a margin of error of 4.9 percent.
About 400 residents over 18 years of age were contacted by telephone in June and July 2008. Interviews were conducted of residents spread across the five wards and across various age brackets, to ensure a representative sample.
Council Chief Executive Paul Wylie said he was very pleased to see that, overall, residents were satisfied with Council services and facilities.
Mayor Richard Kempthorne said the survey was a very helpful guide for Council to identify specific issues. He said it was especially useful being able to look at the perceptions and identify needs from different wards in the District.
The survey showed that Tasman residents are most satisfied with Council’s recreation programmes and events, public libraries, sewerage system, community grants and assistance, environmental information and monitoring, and parking.
Those surveyed were also very happy with the Sundial Square development, roading improvements, traffic flows and road safety.
There was also a high level of satisfaction with the performance of the Mayor Richard Kempthorne, whom respondents said “does a good job”.
The Council services where more than 20 percent of residents were not very satisfied were in the areas of resource consents and compliance, roads, environmental policy and planning, and footpaths.
The only area where Tasman rated lower than its peer councils or the national average was for satisfaction with resource consents and compliance. However, a survey commissioned for the Environment and Planning Department of people or organisations that had actually applied for consents over the last year showed a higher level of satisfaction than the residents’ survey. Mr Wylie said Council has been working to increase resources and improve processes in both the resource and building consents area, and recently achieved accreditation as a Building Consent Authority.
The survey showed that 93 percent of residents have read Tasman Newsline the Mag, Council’s information newsletter, and more than half said this was their main source of Council information. Newspapers were the main source of Council information for 38 percent of residents surveyed.
Good numbers of people had read Council’s other publications, such as Mudcakes and Roses, Boredom Busters and Jam, with high levels of satisfaction. The majority felt they received enough information from Council.
Internet access has increased 13 percent since the last residents’ survey was done in 2005 and 84 percent of residents now have access to the internet.
The vast majority believe Tasman is a safe place to live and 36 percent of residents think Tasman is a better place to live than it was three years ago, with only 5 percent saying they thought it was worse.
Seventy five percent of residents said they were satisfied with the way the natural environment is being preserved and sustained for future generations.
Overall, the results of the survey were very similar to the 2005 survey and Council has now undertaken to have a survey done annually.
Environment and Planning Survey
The survey of permit and consent holders sought feedback on customer satisfaction with the timeliness and cost of consents, helpfulness of staff, information availability, ease of completing forms and understanding obligations as a consent holder.
Overall satisfaction with the level of service provided was 78 percent across all categories (compared with 32 percent in the general survey). This is down from 91 percent in 2002 and using the information from the general residents’ survey, this can be attributed to perceptions of delays, cost and too much red tape.
Council staff were considered to be courteous and helpful by 90.5 percent of those surveyed. There were slight variations by Ward and in the Lakes Murchison Ward there was 100 percent satisfaction with staff performance.
More than half considered charges paid were reasonable and in line with expectations; 79 percent considered they clearly understood their obligations once issued a consent and 63.5 percent were happy with the information made available to applicants.
However 29.5 percent considered the time taken was unreasonable and 10 percent said they were dissatisfied or very dissatisfied with the quality of information available.
The information from the survey will be used to review and improve Council’s departmental practices.
 NRB Executive Summary (275 K)
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