General Public Satisfaction With Public Services In Wales

The broad aim of this research -- conducted by Ipsos on behalf of the Welsh Assembly Government -- was to give an overall idea of current levels of satisfaction with local public services in Wales and to allow some comparisons with equivalent or similar data in England.

The research found that more residents think that the NHS and policing services will deteriorate over the next 12 months -- in this respect, attitudes mirror those across Britain as a whole.

However, the Welsh public has a more optimistic outlook than the rest of Britain when it comes to the short-term prospects for the environment, education and public transport -- indeed circumstantial evidence suggests has been the case at least since the turn of the century.

In the case of the environment, Welsh residents are considerably more positive about the outlook than their English and Scottish counterparts.

In general terms, satisfaction with local authorities is slightly below that for the rest of Britain -- although residents do tend to be satisfied rather than dissatisfied by a ratio of three to one. This may be attributed, at least in part, to a paucity of information.

Download the report and topline results pdf, 850KB

Technical details

MORI Telephone Surveys (MTS) interviewed a representative quota sample of residents (aged 16+), stratified across Wales. 1,010 interviews were conducted by telephone (using CATI -- Computer Aided Telephone Interviewing), with fieldwork taking place between 7-23 March 2006. Quotas were set by gender, age, working status and housing tenure to the known population profile within Wales, using 2001 Census data. The data were then weighted at the processing stage by these same variables to correct for any discrepancies, ensuring maximum representativeness.