Earlier this year the Council carried out a major customer survey. We do this every two years and the responses we receive help the Council to improve the services we offer to our customers.
Over 3,500 people returned the 2006 Customer Survey and these are the main results:
What you told us
Nearly 80% of respondents had contacted the Council within the last 12 months (up from 70% in 2004). Of these, 82% contacted the Council by phone, 29% in person, 9% by letter and 9% by e-mail.
The most common reasons for contacting the Council were to request a service (53%) to seek information or advice, (32%), or to make a complaint (13%). These are broadly in line with the figures in our 2004 survey which asked the same questions.
70% of respondents indicated they would prefer to request a service by phone.
The survey asked customers about their experience when contacting the Council and asked for their views on:
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helpfulness and courtesy of staff;
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ease of contacting someone who can help;
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time taken to answer the phone; and
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time taken to receive a written reply to a query.
The customer satisfaction of those who responded to each of these questions in the 2006 survey is compared to the 2004 performance in the graphs.
We asked the public to pick a statement which best described their experience of dealing with the Council. 63% of those who chose an option said that they got what they wanted and were treated well, with only 11% advising that they did not get what they wanted and were not treated well.
On the subject of extensions to the Council’s contact hours for telephone calls, 34% favoured weekends from 10am-4pm, with only 9% favouring 24-hour availability and only 5% availability on public holidays. We are reviewing this.
Public performance reporting
Most of those who replied normally obtain information about the Council from publications such as Falkirk Council News (64%), from local newspapers (59%), through word of mouth (21%) or the Council website (13%).
Falkirk Council News scored very highly in a recent readership survey with 74% rating it as very good or good, 77% rating it as useful and 66% reading all or most of it.
72% of respondents felt well informed or informed about the Council, with only 17% saying they were not informed about Council services (down from 25% in 2004).
37% use the Internet, the majority of them at home and 58% of these respondents had visited the Council website.
76% are very interested or quite interested in how the Council is performing. We asked people to tell us which areas they would like to receive information about and the most popular responses are shown on the graph.
These priorities are broadly in line with those identified in the 2004 survey.
Customer satisfaction
There are high levels of satisfaction with a number of environmental services, including:
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refuse collection (85% very satisfied or satisfied)
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special uplifts (60% satisfied or very satisfied)
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street lighting (70% very satisfied or satisfied)
Satisfaction levels are slightly below those in 2004, however a review has indicated that satisfaction levels initially fall after the introduction of a three bin system but then rise again. Demand for the special uplift service continued to increase and rose from just under 45,000 requests in 2000/01 to almost 60,000 in 2004/05. This places increased demand on the Council in meeting our target to uplift goods within a 5 day working period.
Customer satisfaction levels for litter collection and control of dog fouling were lower. Historically these have had lower levels of satisfaction though there have been improvements since the last survey and we are working very hard to get the message across that dropping litter is totally unacceptable.
Living in Falkirk
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81% of respondents were either very or fairly satisfied with their neighbourhood as a place to live.
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50% think their area has not changed much over the past two years, although 29% think it is getting worse.
These figures are in line with the findings from the 2004 survey.
The survey asked residents to choose from a list of options the single thing which would most improve their area.
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34% said less litter
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23% said better roads
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14% said improved town centres
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12% better parks.
84% of residents feel either very safe or fairly safe in their local area during the day, although this drops to 47% after dark. In 2004 the figures were 80% and 45%.
Over 1000 people indicated that they would be prepared to take part in further research about Council services and we will be contacting them in the future.
Further information about Falkirk Council’s performance can be found on our website at www.falkirk.gov.uk|, just follow the performance zone link from the home page, and in Falkirk Council News.
Your views are very important to us. If you have comments to make about the Council’s performance please email us at info@falkirk.gov.uk|.