Dunedin City Council 2011 Residents Opinion Survey
One way the Dunedin CIty Council gauges the views of the "silent majority" is through the annual Residents’ Opinion Survey, or ROS. The Council has been undertaking the ROS since 1994 and by giving expression to all sectors and areas of the community it has become a valuable tool for guiding its decision-making process and prioritising expenditure.
The ROS survey focuses on service delivery and effectiveness, and asks questions about people's perceptions of the Council's performance.
The ROS survey is also a crucial part of the Council's performance monitoring. Most DCC departments have customer service and other performance targets in their Activity Management Plans which they are required to meet every year. A lot of the set targets come from the ROS survey results.
In addition, there are also quality measures in the Community Plan which emanate from the ROS results.
Changes made as a result of Residents’ Opinion Surveys
Not only do the ROS results help the Council measure its performance, but the results also show us areas where we can make further improvements.
For example, the 2010 ROS showed a low level of satisfaction with the ‘amount of public consultation undertaken.’ In 2011 the Council is involving the whole community in a discussion about our shared vision for our city. This discussion will build on work that the Council is already undertaking with representatives from different sectors of Dunedin’s community. The media and the wider community will hear more about this exercise in the coming months.
Recent surveys have also shown consistently low levels of satisfaction with the overall look and feel of the South Dunedin retail area. This provided the single lowest satisfaction score in the 2010 Survey. To address this, the Council has:
• Planned consultation for mid 2011 on an Action Plan for improving the area;
• Developed concept design options for an upgrade to King Edward Street;
• Begun upgrades to public amenities in Lorne street. These will eventually include the planting of tress and the installation of a new childrens' play area, picnic tables and bench seats;
• Established the King Edward Street Facades Grant - a one-off $50,000 fund which supports building owners maintain verandas and to clean and paint building facades which face King Edward Street; and
• Partnered with building owners and the Dunedin School of Art at Otago polytechnic to exhibit art works in vacant shops.
The suitability of the road network for cyclists is another area which has consistently received low satisfaction ratings in the ROS survey. In response the Council has:
• Completed an external review of cycling in Dunedin including potential strategic routes for cyclists;
• Begun developing a forward works programme for cycling initiatives;
• Included funding for an investigation into the reopening of Caversham Tunnel for pedestrians and cyclists in the Draft Annual Plan 2011/12;
• Almost completed 3.5km of continuous cycle lanes between Company Bay and Rosehill road and started on 0.6km of cycleway near Vauxhall.
• Begun building cycle connections which link the harbour front area near Steamer Basin, Anzac Ave and existing cycling lanes on the one way system; and .
• Completed designs for cycle lanes on Andersons Bay road to link with existing lanes on the one way system.
The New Zealand Transport Agency has also approved funding to construct cycle lanes between Maia and St Leonards.
Method and Timeline
4,500 surveys will be posted to randomly selected residents on 21 April 2011. The survey will also be available online at www.dunedin.govt.nz/ros. Providing an online survey allows all Dunedin residents to have their say and gives residents who receive the mailed questionnaire another method of completing the survey.
To ensure the statistical validity of the survey results, the responses from residents who were randomly selected to complete the survey are used as the official survey results. Responses from residents who independently chose to complete the survey online are analysed separately but also provide the Council with a extremely valuable source of information. For example the Council gathers a lot of valuable ideas for improving its services and the city from residents' responses to the open ended questions contained in the survey. The more residents that complete the survey, the more ideas it receives. Last year, 1,077 people responded to the survey after receiving a posted questionnaire and a further 176 people independently responded to the online survey.
All surveys, including the online survey, need to be completed by Friday, 20 May. The results will be analysed by Research First, an independent research company based in Christchurch, who is conducting the survey on behalf of the Council.
The results will be available to the general public in early July 2011 and will be posted on the DCC's website.