2003 Resident Satisfaction Survey

In 2003 local authorities all over England carried out a survey to measure how satisfied people are with the services provided by their Councils.

The services provided by the County Council have a direct impact on your quality of life, for example, through the school your child or grandchild goes to, the care you or your older relatives receive, the quality of local bus services, the condition of local libraries and the state of the environment.  

To gauge how well Councils are doing, the Government collects information about whether local people are happy with their Council services through a residents' satisfaction survey carried out every three years.  The results from this survey tell us how well we are doing and where we need to improve our services in the future.

Last Autumn we asked a random selection of 5,000 residents living in Leicestershire their views on the county, the County Council and the services we provide.  Over 2,700 of you responded, a great response - so thank you.  Here is what you had to say. If you would like to see the results in detail please click here.

Nearly eight out of ten of you are satisfied with Leicestershire as a place to live.  

You said:

1. Low level of crime
2. Accessible health services
3. Clean streets
4. Good schools
5. Affordable housing

You said:

1. Level of crime
2. Traffic congestion
3. Activities for teenagers
4. Public transport
5. Road repairs

You said that over the last 3 years:

Shopping facilities, access to nature, parks and open spaces, sports facilities and health services have improved.  

You said that over the last 3 years:

Traffic congestion, crime, housing, the cost of living and pollution have got worse.

Just over half of residents who responded are satisfied with the way the Council runs things and a further four in ten say they were neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.  One in ten of you are dissatisfied with the County Council.  

However eight in ten of you think the way in which we runs things has either got better or stayed the same over the past three years.

Of those of you that expressed an opinion, nearly half of you feel well informed, three out of ten say we only give you a limited amount of information and nearly two out of ten say the County Council doesn't tell you much about what it does.

Over 350 people said they had made a complaint to the Council in the last 12 months but interestingly the majority of these related to services not provided by the County Council.  Three in ten of you are satisfied with the way the complaint was handled.

Of those of you that expressed an opinion, nearly three in ten of you agree that you can influence decisions, three in ten neither agree nor disagree and four out of ten disagree.

Overall, nearly eight out of ten of you are satisfied with your local tip.  More than eight out of ten are satisfied with the location of the sites and their opening hours; and over seven out of ten are satisfied with the recycling facilities at the tip, how clean the site is and its user-friendliness.  Just over half of you are satisfied with the helpfulness of the staff.

Overall a third of you are satisfied with the provision of public transport information although a further third expressed no opinion.  Similarly in terms of the amount of information, the clarity of information and the accuracy of information, just over a third of you are satisfied.

Just over a third of you use the bus at least monthly and nearly three out of ten have never used the bus.  In terms of satisfaction with the service, a significant proportion of you responded "don't know", but of those who expressed an opinion: over half are happy with the state of the bus stops and punctuality; just over six out of ten are satisfied with the frequency of buses; and over seven in ten of you are satisfied with the number of bus stops and ease of access to the buses.  Nearly six in ten of you are satisfied with your local bus service overall.

Approximately half of you are satisfied with the Council's museums and theatres with a similar proportion neither satisfied nor dissatisfied.  Over seven out of ten are satisfied with libraries and country parks.

The Government has published some information that shows:

Overall the County Council compares reasonably well against the national averages and the average scores across all county councils.

The results are disappointing in a number of areas.  However we plan to develop an action plan to respond specifically to the issues raised by residents including strengthening our customer focus.  This action plan will be published early next year on the Council's website and reported through Leicestershire Matters.