Councillors and committees

Draft minutes

Contact: Clive Mentzel, Scrutiny Officer 

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1.

CONSIDERATION OF RESIDENTS' SURVEY pdf icon PDF 498 KB

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    Additional documents:

    Minutes:

    Witnesses:

    Abigail Linyard-Tough, Research & Evaluation Officer

    Hannah Pattinson, Strategic Lead – Resident Insight

    Rich Stockley, Head of Research

     

    Key points raised during the discussion:

    1. The Strategic Lead introduced the slideshow presentation. It was agreed that this slideshow would be emailed to Members after the meeting.

     

    Will Forster Warner arrived at 12:14pm.

               

    1. The Head of Research explained that the residents’ survey was answered by a demographically representative sample of residents, which gave more accurate results than self-selective residents’ surveys, as were used by some other councils. It was conducted by an external company, Swift Research.

     

    1. The Research and Evaluation Officer informed Members that the residents’ survey was conducted through telephone interviews, which was deemed cost-effective and relatively anonymous, and in partnership with Surrey Police.

     

    1. The residents’ survey had been operating for 12 years in Surrey, meaning there was a large well of long-term data to draw on.

     

    1. Each month, the survey was conducted with 550 residents. This data was then compiled quarterly.

     

    1. Residents’ surveys were conducted in varying ways by Local Authorities (LAs) across the country as well as by the Local Government Association (LGA). The LGA questions and guidance had been used in designing the Surrey County Council survey, and national data gathered by the LGA could be used as a comparator.

     

    1. The Task Group felt it would be useful to see a breakdown between different districts and boroughs perhaps not frequently but on the basis of sharing an overview. In the same vein, data on comparison with other LAs would also be useful, as would a country-wide perspective based on the LGA survey for the country as a whole.

     

    1. On discussion relating to the veracity of the survey and the reliability of the data it generated, the Task Group was interested in understanding how bias was taken into account in the survey. The Head of Research said that there was always bias, and the survey was designed taking this into account. Given that it was not possible to eliminate bias completely, the Head of Research said that in interpreting the results, a standard deviation method (95% accuracy with 2% either way) could be applied to show how probable it was that the survey was accurate.

     

    1. A Member noted that some people would not want to answer a call from a number they did not recognise, which led to some inevitable self-selection depending on which residents would choose to answer the call. The Head of Research acknowledged that this could cause bias, and said that he would send Members more information on this.

     

    1. A Member said that it would be useful to see the results of the residents’ survey broken down by Districts and Boroughs. The Head of Research informed Members that it would broadly be possible to obtain figures on a District and Borough level and even on a division level, perhaps not on a monthly basis but on an annual basis instead. However, another Member was not convinced that divisional research would be of value.

     

    1. A Member asked  ...  view the full minutes text for item 1.