Community satisfaction survey

The annual Community Satisfaction Survey is conducted by the Victorian Government's Department of Environment, Land, Water and Planning on behalf of participating councils.

Data collection for the 2020 Community Satisfaction Survey was undertaken from 30 January 2020 to 22 March 2020. It is important to note that the survey period coincided with the emergence of the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Survey is designed to measure community satisfaction with Local Government performance and provide insights into how communities view the performance of their local authorities.

The Survey is used to collect your feedback about:

• Council's overall performance
• community consultation and engagement
• advocacy – lobbying on behalf of the community
• making community decisions
• sealed local roads
• customer service
• overall council direction.

The survey questions are standardised across the state which means that their wording may not always reflect the localised focus of service delivery. The survey questions also only provide limited contextual information which could mean that respondents provide ratings based on services, activities or issues that are beyond Council’s direct area of influence.

This research is led by the Victorian Government and Council did not provide any personal details or phone numbers to the market research firm undertaking the survey. 

Benchmarking

Local Government Victoria categorise participating Councils into groupings of ‘like’ municipalities for the purpose of benchmarking results of the survey.

Maroondah City Council has been grouped with other metropolitan Councils including Banyule, Boroondara, Brimbank, Glen Eira, Greater Dandenong, Frankston, Kingston, Knox, Manningham, Melbourne, Port Phillip, Stonnington and Whitehorse municipalities. 

Survey results 2020

Council’s 2020 results are generally slightly lower when compared to results averaged out over the past 5 years. However, Council continues to perform well in comparison to state-wide average results. 

In fact, our overall performance is rated in line with the average rating for councils in the Metropolitan group and is rated statistically significantly higher than the state-wide average for councils (index scores of 66 and 58 respectively).

Highlights

• The rating for ‘Councils overall performance’ (65) is seven points higher compared to the state-wide average (58):
  • The rating for ‘overall direction of Council’ (56) is five points higher compared to the state-wide average (51).
  • The rating for ‘making decisions in the interest of the community’ (58) is five points higher compared to the state-wide average (53).
  • The rating for ‘Business and community development and tourism’ (63) is four points higher compared to the state-wide average (59).

Council will consider these results to help identify opportunities for further improvements and enhancements to service delivery.

Summary of results

*Statistically significant trend – result is significantly higher/lower than previous year at the 95% confidence level .

View the results from the 2020 survey:

Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey Results 2020  (pdf, 2MB)

Related links

Local Government Victoria

Know Your Council