New survey reveals 93% of Highland residents are happy with community life and services in the Highlands

4th November 2014

A report on the latest results from a survey of the Citizen's Panel shows generally positive trends and improving satisfaction with most services in the Highlands.

93% say they rate quality of community life in the neighbourhood they live in as very or fairly good and almost 97% rate their locality as very or fairly safe. 78% believe the Council meets or exceeds their general expectations, with 45 service areas scoring highly in satisfaction, with the four most important services being listed as road repairs, winter road maintenance, refuse collection and recycling services.

When asked if the council maintains good quality local services, 67% agree against a national benchmark of 45%.

When it comes to contacting the council, 91% say they find it easy, with the top three preferred methods being personal visit (33%), on-line (29%) and telephone (20%).

Online contact is steadily increasing and 34 new forms have now been made available via the new website, with an additional 33 to be introduced early next year.

Steve Barron, Chief Executive said: "We are listening and where there are areas of concern, we have put improvement plans in place. However, this report gives us really important and positive evidence which demonstrates that the Highlands is a great place to live and do business."

Leader of the Council Drew Hendry welcomed the report saying, "The annual survey contributes towards our Programme commitment that we will continue to measure our progress openly, report on it publicly and listen to communities, to ensure we are delivering the best value for Council taxpayers."

The survey received 1,148 responses from our Citizens' Panel providing a 41.9% response rate.

One area of dissatisfaction was highlighted in the survey in relation to road repairs and potholes. £1.25 million was allocated in April 2014 to fund an action plan to address this issue. There have already been promising results and a report will be presented to the Community Services committee in February 2015.

The Citizens’ Panel Survey can be found on our website at http://www.highland.gov.uk/meetings/meeting/3335/highland_council