Community survey maps priority services

Bundaberg Regional Council’s recent, independent customer satisfaction survey shows the community has a high regard for the facilities and services provided.

Undertaken by Taverner Research Group in October, almost 450 residents were interviewed by telephone and 333 completed an online questionnaire.

The poll was conducted on a purely random basis, ensuring an adequate mix of respondents by age and gender and across different sub-regions.

Telephone respondents were screened to ensure they were aged 18 or over, had lived in the Bundaberg LGA and were not councillors or permanent Council employees.

The questions and methodology were nearly identical to the previous survey in 2019.

For satisfaction ratings, a five-point scale was used where a rating of 1 = very poor and 5 = excellent.

Council’s CEO Steve Johnston said it was pleasing to see that results were similar to the previous survey, with overall satisfaction virtually unchanged at 3.36 compared with 3.40 in 2019.

“Since 2019 there’s been a Council election and significant Covid impacts,” Mr Johnston said.

“It’s a good result but leaves room for improvement.

“We’ll consider the results during future corporate planning.”

The survey included a “driver analysis”, which summarised satisfaction with Council facilities and services.

Service areas were mapped into four quadrants based on the survey rankings for importance and satisfaction.

Areas identified as “strengths to maintain” included parks and gardens, Bundaberg Now and waste management.

Areas of high importance but lower satisfaction included roads and drainage, developing the regional economy, planning and development.

A “gap analysis” delivered similar findings.

Mr Johnston said the survey was a useful guide as to how people perceived things at a particular point in time.

“It’s a tool to help Council understand the services which people consider important and areas that need improvement,” he said.

“Roads and drainage are always high on the list for importance and Council does a lot of work within our available resources to meet community expectations.

“Communication also ranks up there again for importance, which validates the efforts to improve this over the past few years including Bundaberg Now, a new Council website and mobile apps.”

When it comes to finding out about Council policies and activities, local activities and events, more than half the respondents preferred online and social media while just a small number preferred TV, radio and print.

Telephone was favoured for asking Council to do something (47%) and making general requests for information (39%).

A new question in the 2021 survey asked residents if Council should continue to have divisions and 57% responded yes compared with 24% no.

Read the full Bundaberg Now story here.