Involve: Your place, your say... (Kirklees residents' survey 2011)

What we're doing

The aim of this survey (run jointly by Kirklees Council, NHS Kirklees and other local service providers) is to help understand people's views on the local area and what it's like to live here. We will be asking a cross-section of residents questions about their local area; home and work; local public services; getting involved in the community; overall life satisfaction; and plans for the future. The findings will help us better understand local communities and their needs to inform the way we do things.

When we're doing it?

Between 10-Oct-2011 and 25-Nov-2011

We will be

Asking for information

Themes

Climate change and the environment
Crime and anti-social behaviour
Customer experiences
Events, leisure and culture
Health, wellbeing and lifestyle
Roads and transport

Where's it happening?

Across the whole of Kirklees:

More information on what we're doing

A random sample of Kirklees residents will be invited to take part in the survey - if your household is selected to receive a questionnaire then please complete and return it as soon as possible.

If you're over 18 and live in Kirklees you can take part online, even if you don't receive a questionnaire in the post. The survey opens 10th October and closes 25th November 2011.

If you need help completing the survey please call Qa Research on their freephone helpline 0800 980 9030 (weekdays 10am-2pm) or email survey.info@qaresearch.co.uk. They will be happy to help you with any general queries about how to complete the survey. You can also request alternative formats such as large print or Braille.

The survey can be made available in different community languages – through translation or interpretation. If you would like to talk to someone about this please call Kirklees Council’s Community Languages team on 01484 223326. There is also information about how to do this in the postal survey packs which include translated statements in six community languages: Urdu, Punjabi, Gujarati, Chinese, Polish and Kurdish.

From 7th November, Qa Research will also be carrying out some door-to-door interviews with communities who are under-represented in responses to the main postal survey.

If you'd like to know more about the survey take a look at the FAQs or press release which are both linked from the right of this page.

[UPDATE: the survey has now closed]

Can anyone get involved?

Yes

What happened?

Well over 9000 Kirklees residents have responded to the survey - many thanks to those of you who took part!

Headline findings from the survey include:

*76% of Kirklees residents are satisfied with their local area as a place to live (a similar overall rating to 77% in 2008).

*12% felt that their local area had got better over the last three years, 24% felt it had got worse.

* 51% agree that their local area is a place where people treat each other with respect and consideration.

*Just over half (53%) are satisfied with their nearest town centre, with 42% feeling it has 'got worse' over the last three years.

*39% are satisfied with the way Kirklees Council runs things and 33% agree that Kirklees Council provides value for money.

*The council service that residents see as the most important (selected by 74%) is household refuse collection. This is also the service people were most satisfied with (79% satisfied). When evaluating importance, respondents tended to choose services which are used by the majority of people.

*Direct interactions with the council have been rated highly by respondents - for example 91% felt they were treated 'politely and with respect', 84% felt they were 'listened to' and 83% said they were 'treated fairly'.

A full set of data tables are available via the Kirklees Intelligence Observatory http://observatory.kirklees.gov.uk/explorer/resources/ (to view the tables you will need to click on ‘Resources’ and select the 'Kirklees surveys' theme, then choose 'your place, your say’).

A summary of conclusions from the overall report is also attached, along with other selected analysis, e.g. geographical summaries, communities of interest summaries (age, gender, ethnicity, disability, sexual orientation and religion), and analysis of themes such as ageing well and subjective well-being.

What difference did the work make?

Key findings linked to resident priorities, the importance of different services and perceptions of value for money were first used shortly after the survey was complete to help inform the council's budget setting process (January 2012). This work included analysis of the differences in views/priorities between different communities of interest. [See link to separate INVOLVE entry].

Following on from this, the council has been continuing to use the important evidence provided by the survey in many different ways:

*Headline findings linked to the council's priorities and specific service performance indicators were fed into Quarter 3 2011-12 performance discussions in January 2012. Since then, a range of data and further analysis from the survey has been used to support performance monitoring discussions each quarter.

*Analysis focused around the vision for Kirklees was shared with the council's Cabinet and Directors to help support discussions to refresh the council’s priorities.

*Analysis of the findings linked to cohesion, crime and community safety have been shared with the Cohesion Board and Community Safety panels, and used to support the development of a revised Cohesion Strategy. Perceptions of crime information is also being used alongside the police’s actual crime data to target local safety and re-assurance campaigns in neighbourhoods across Kirklees

*Geographical summaries (see attached) were prepared for the Area and Neighbourhood Action Team (ANAT) to help inform the council's area-based working and support the development of neighbourhood plans.

*Communities of interest summaries (see attached) are helping to provide a better understanding of different communities of interest to help shape future service delivery.

*Findings relating to experiences of customer contact with the council have been used as part of 'Customer Promise' training for frontline staff.

*The findings from arts-based Qs were used to help the council apply for national funding from the Arts Council to invest in more arts and creative events in North Kirklees.

*Resident feedback on services and issues in the local area has been used to help make sure frontline services such as street cleaning, pest control and highways maintenance are targeted where people say they are most needed, so problem areas get more help.

Methods of involvement

Method	How	How many people	Start	End
Face to face	Questionnaire	350	07-11-2011	25-11-2011
Online	Follow the link on the right	as many as possible	10-10-2011	25-11-2011
Paper copy	Postal questionnaire	35000	10-10-2011	25-11-2011

Project summary

Your place, your say... (Kirklees residents' survey 2011)