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What the panel thought of our priorities
Panel members were told about our priorities and asked to indicate the extent to which these should guide our future activities.
Overall agreement with the priorities was high, in excess of 70% for all priorities. The highest level of agreement was for Priority 2, 'working closely with our partners to make the town clean and safe', where over 90% agreed with the priority. 86.9% of respondents agreed with Priority 1, 'to soften the impact of the economic downturn on the town's economy and residents' lives'. Similarly 85.6% of respondents agreed with Priority 3, 'Making sure we're efficient, customer focussed and a good organisation to work for'.
The lowest level of agreement was in respect of Priority 4, 'Promoting equality and an inclusive, supportive community', where agreement fell to just over 70%, (70.4%). Disagreement was highest for this Priority with 8.9% disagreeing.
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Services the panel thought we should and should not provide
Panel members were informed in the questionnaire 'that in order to target our resources at delivering good quality services we need to make choices about which activities we should continue to support and which areas we should invest more or less in'. From a list of thirty five services/activities that we currently provide respondents were asked which, if any, of these services they believe residents need and expect us to spend money on, and which, if any, we should no longer provide.
Nine out of ten or more respondents considered that we should provide the following services:
- Work in partnership with others such as the Police, Health and Education to address issues affecting the town (90.1%)
- Work with the Police and other partners to tackle anti social behaviour and reduce crime (91.5%)
- Maintain public conveniences (92.5%)
- Make sure parks and open spaces are kept clean, attractive and safe for the public to enjoy (93.9%)
- Keep the streets clean (96.5%)
- Collect rubbish and provide recycling facilities (96.7%)
Two services were supported by less that half of all respondents. These were:
- Encouraging arts and culture by supporting projects like the Coastal Currents festival and the proposed Jerwood Gallery (44.7%)
- Providing entertainment through the White Rock Theatre with just 41.8% of respondents considering that we should provide this
These services were nominated by more than one in five of the respondents as being services that we should not provide:
- encouraging arts and culture (27.7%)
- providing entertainment through the White Rock Theatre (34.1%)
Over a quarter of all respondents (28.2%) also felt that we should not provide the 'teaching of vocational skills to young people who've left school with few or no qualifications'.
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What the panel said about how we involve local people in decision making
Respondents were asked the extent to which they agreed or disagreed that they could influence decisions affecting their local area, with their local area being defined as within 15 to 20 minutes walking distance from their home. Just under 40% of all respondents, (38.8%) agreed that they could influence such decisions. Nearly half of all respondents disagreed, (46.7%).
When asked whether, generally speaking, they would like to get more involved in the decisions that affect their local area just under a third of all respondents, (32%) said that they would like to do so.
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What the panel said about community cohesion
Over half of all respondents agreed that their local neighbourhood is a place where people from different background get on well together (57.2%). 16.8% disagreed.
Just over a third of all respondents (36.1%) thought that 'people not treating each other with respect and consideration' was either a 'very big problem' (10.2%) or a 'fairly big problem' (25.9%).
The majority of respondents considered that they had been treated with respect and consideration by their local public services in the last year. 21.4% said that this happened 'all of the time' and 48.5% 'most of the time'.
16.2% of respondents said that they had been treated with respect and consideration by public services for only 'some of the time', 5.6% 'rarely' and 0.9% 'never'.
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What the panel said about how we communicate with the public
Respondents were asked how well informed they felt they were about a list of eight issues. The majority of respondents felt that they were 'well informed' about how and where to register to vote (92.5%) and how their Council Tax is spent, (72.2%).
For all other issues less than half of all respondents felt that they were well informed with this dropping to only 16.7% of respondents considering that they were well informed about what to do in the event of a large scale emergency, for example flooding or a human pandemic. 72.1% said that they were 'not very well informed' (38.5%) or 'not at all well informed' (33.6%) about this.
Over half of all respondents felt that they were not well informed about how they can get involved in local decision making, (51.5%) and how to complain about local public services, (50.4%).
Overall just over half of all respondents felt 'very well', (6%); or 'fairly well informed', (46.1%), about local public services (52.1%).
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What the panel thought of the questionnaire
The large majority of respondents said they agreed that the questionnaire was 'easy to understand', (80.9%); and that the questionnaire was 'easy to complete' (83.8%). However, rather fewer said that they found the topics 'interesting' (46.6%).
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About the Citizens' Panel
Set up in 1999, this regularly changed panel of 1,600 adult residents (100 people selected at random from each ward) is influential in many of the decisions that we have to make.
Our independent market research company writes out to the residents twice yearly, and asks them a number of questions about their lives, their experience of our services and their views on our priorities.
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