Are you being served? Benchmarking residents' perceptions of local government

Today, the Local Government Association and London Councils formally launch their consultation on how local councils can best benchmark on key perception-based measures, based on a review conducted by Ipsos. The joint consultation is being taken forward as a result of the demise of the Place Survey, which previously compared opinion data across local authorities. The consultation recommends a core set of questions councils can use in their own local surveys, which they will be able to share through Local Government Inform (LG Inform) - a new data service the LGA is running that gives councillors and council officers easy access to key data. The consultation recommendations are based on a rapid technical review conducted by Ipsos which was carried out between October 2011 and February 2012. 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.

• The entire review is described in more detail the report, Are you being served? Benchmarking residents’ perceptions of local government.

To view the survey consultation document, please visit www.local.gov.uk/about-lginform Please email: Debbie Lee Chan or ring 020 7347 3222 for more details about the technical review.