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With the recent move away from central targets and the discontinuation of the prescribed BVPI and Place Surveys for local government, some authorities now consider there to be a gap in evidence, with little robust, analogous, perceptions-based information about their residents, and an inability to benchmark reliably across the sector.
With this in mind, the Local Government Association (LGA) and the London Councils Self Improvement Board commissioned Ipsos to carry out a rapid review exercise to guide the sector on how to achieve a national benchmark on residents’ perceptions of council performance. This review was carried out between October 2011 and February 2012.
Peter Fleming, Chairman of the LGA Improvement Board, said: “Being able to compare resident satisfaction rates against similar local authorities is good for local people, councillors and council workers. It will help boost transparency and strengthen accountability”.
Ipsos looked at the range of questions and methods for measuring residents’ perceptions that councils were already using.
This review consisted of:
- a rapid literature review of key technical issues;
- interviews with senior stakeholders to gain insight to the needs of the sector; and
- a review of questions that could form core benchmarking data – which included cognitive testing of existing questions.
This was supplemented by an informal consultation whereby local authorities were invited to submit their viewpoints, along with information about their current research methods and benchmarking practices for satisfaction data.
Based on Ipsos’s recommendations, the LGA drafted guidance for councils to use in their own local surveys to collect general resident satisfaction data. The guidance also outlines the quality criteria that will be required for authorities to upload and compare data in LG Inform, to ensure that all comparisons being made are valid and robust. An LGA spokesperson said the guidance document should be of particular interest to social researchers that work with local government “as councils will increasingly be expecting companies to help them design resident satisfaction surveys that contain the recommended questions and meet all of the quality criteria”.
