Dundee City Council Consumer Survey

At the Policy and Resources Committee  (pages 8-15) last night the council considered the Annual Consumer Survey.  This is an interesting piece of work, which cost a considerable amount of money.  It was then astonishing to hear the leader of the council rubbish his own report.  He said that the sample was not representative, if this is the case then we should stop paying for this service.  The leader of the council was convinced that the figure for the council having a 'Good Range of Services' was wrong.  I pointed out that if we are going to complain about parts of the survey which we do not like such as whether there is a 'Good Range of Services' which 69% of respondents said was the case then we also have to reject  100% of respondents who are satisfied with local schools for example.  Whilst the leader of the council was saying how poor the survey was, officers were standing by its conclusions.  I will be asking officers for a briefing on the methodology of the survey and for details of costs and whether the council plans to engage the same company in the future to carry out these surveys.

It is important that the council listens to the views of the people of Dundee.  There are many ways in which this can be done and having a survey of customer satisfaction strikes me as one way of listening to the people of Dundee.  It was peculiar to say the least to listen to the leader of council criticise a report which he brought forward and had placed on the agenda of the meeting.