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Round 4 Beacon Council Scheme: Baseline Data(Final revised report)

User/Public Satisfaction with Service Delivery: Overall and Theme Specific Performance

Briefing Paper prepared for The Beacon Council Advisory Panel/ODPM

December 2002

Contents

Introduction *

Part One: Methodology *

Local Studies: BVPI data *

Other Local Studies *

National Data for Overall and Themed Performance *

Guidance on Data Analysis *

Further Reading *

Overview *

Part Two: Overall Performance of Local Government *

1. Overall satisfaction with how an authority is running an area *

2. Value for Money *

3. Overall quality of services *

4. Satisfaction with Handling of Complaints *

5. Well informed *

6. How have residents been consulted? *

7. Community leadership role *

Part Three: The BVPI Dataset *

The General Surveys *

Corporate Health (BV3 and BV4) *

Litter and Waste services (BV89 and BV90) *

Public Transport (BV103 and BV104) *

Cultural and Recreational Services (BV119) *

The Tenants’ Survey *

The Benefits Survey (BV80) *

The Planning Survey (BV111) *

The Libraries Survey (BV118) *

Part Four: Round 4 Themes *

1. Children and Adolescent Mental Health Services *

2. Community Cohesion *

3. Removing barriers to work *

4. Social Inclusion through ICT *

5. Supporting the Rural Economy *

6. Tackling Homelessness *

7. Transforming Secondary Education *

8. Quality of the Built Environment *

9. Rethinking Construction *

10. Street and Highway Works *

11. Evaluation of general performance data *

12. Evaluation of non BVPI general performance data *

13. Methodological evaluation *

14. Themed evaluations *

Introduction

The Beacon Council Scheme is now in its fourth year. It aims to "identify the best performing councils who can act as centres of excellence from which other councils can learn". All local authorities in England are invited to prepare bids for Beacon Status. Ten themes were identified for 2003-2004 under which councils will be invited to submit their applications.

The closing date for applications is 26 September 2002. This will be followed by a detailed selection process, prior to the announcement of the successful applications in April 2003.

The selection of Beacon Councils will be made by ministers, on the basis of advice from the Independent Advisory Panel on Beacon Councils and other relevant information.

Applicant councils have been invited to show evidence that they have taken steps to evaluate user satisfaction. This applies both to the overall performance of the authority (all authorities were obliged to carry out residents’ surveys to collect the new user satisfaction Best Value Performance Indicators in autumn 2000) and to the theme(s) on which it is applying for Beacon Status.

In order to help the Beacon Council Advisory Panel assess the relevance and validity of the survey research submitted, ODPM has commissioned MORI Local Government Research to prepare a briefing paper outlining the scope of salient research carried out recently. There are two principal objectives to this exercise:

• To inform the Advisory Panel of the range of survey research available, so as to provide some context to the submission of local authority survey data;
• To establish, where appropriate, national baselines against which survey data of applicant councils can be benchmarked to judge evidence of good practice.

If authorities submit survey data which cannot be compared with national baselines (eg due to differences in methodology), MORI will offer advice to the Panel on how applicant councils are using survey evidence to improve their services, and will look for evidence of improving trends within the council over time, where appropriate.

Applicant councils may also find it useful to look at the templates and guidance to evaluating user satisfaction data used by MORI in Round 2 and Round 3 applications. These can be found at:

http://www.local-regions.odpm.gov.uk/beacon/index.htm.

Authorities should note, however, that the templates will be updated in Round 4.

This report, which was first published in July 2002, has been amended in December 2002 to include an appended section on the evaluation of applications to the Beacon Council Scheme

Acknowledgements

We are grateful to all the authorities, organisations and individuals who have provided survey data for this exercise. In particular, we would like to thank Matt Carter, and Hannah Cromarty at ODPM for their help and advice in scoping the project.

Part One: Methodology

Below we detail the approach undertaken to collate relevant survey data on the overall performance of local authorities and on each of the ten themes. This methodology was developed in consultation with colleagues at ODPM.

Local Studies: BVPI data

All English local authorities were requested to carry out representative surveys of residents and service users to collate BVPIs. Depending on the status of the authority, a number of different BVPI surveys were undertaken: general, benefits, housing, libraries, planning, and social services.

MORI will use the general BVPI survey as the principal national baseline in the evaluation of overall performance. While there are some issues surrounding the comparability of BVPI survey data from authority to authority – e.g. differences in methodology and response rate - aggregated data from these BVPI surveys should provide the most useful comparative datasource, for the following reasons:

• This will be the most recent survey dataset for many authorities;
• It was designed to allow comparisons between authorities;
• It covers a range of service areas, as well as providing "corporate health" measures, thereby providing a framework for looking at overall performance;

The ODPM has audited and edited the data that have been submitted by local authorities. This is now available on the ODPM website (http://www.local-regions.odpm.gov.uk/bestvalue/indicators/indicatorsindex.htm). It will be used as the principal source of comparative data for use in the assessment of general performance.

Authorities have also been advised that they can include with their application another general performance survey if they believe this is useful supplementary information. Data from these surveys can be compared with local studies from the MORI benchmarking database and from other national studies.

Other Local Studies

Where appropriate – for some key overall performance measures – we have included data from MORI’s benchmarking database of studies for local authorities. This should not be considered exhaustive as it is limited to MORI clients, but does provide context to the national studies.

National Data for Overall and Themed Performance

We also contacted the following individuals to try to establish national baselines with which an applicant’s survey data can be compared or which provides salient background information:

• Relevant Government policy officials, panel specialists and researchers for each theme on the Beacon Advisory Panel;
• Central government researchers.

In addition, the data-trawl also included an internet search for relevant data, focusing on academic institutions and organisations who may have commissioned relevant survey research. A list of organisations we contacted and whose websites we searched is shown overleaf.

 

Audit Commission	LARIA
Bartlett School of Planning	Local Government Association (LGA)
British Association for International and Comparative Education	Mental Health Foundation
British Educational Research Association	National Centre for Education Studies
Carnegie	National Centre for Social Research
Centre for Economic and Social Exclusion	National Health Care for the Homeless Council
Centre for the Rural Economy, University of Newcastle upon Tyne	NFER
CERUK	Office of National Statistics
Commission for Architecture & the Built Environment (CABE)	OFSTED
Commission for Racial Equality (CRE)	Richard Rogers Partnership
Construction Industry Information Group (CIIG)	Royal Institute of British Architects
Construction Industry Research & Information Association (CIRIA)	Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors
CRISIS	Scottish Executive
DEFRA	Shelter
DfES	The Countryside Agency
Disability Rights Commission (DRC)	The Education Network
DoH	The Royal Agriculture College, School of Rural Economy and Land Management
Economic and Social Research Council	Trades Union Congress (TUC)
Education Design Group	Union of Construction, Allied Trades & Technicians (UCATT)
Health Development Agency	Urban Design Alliance
Home Office	Urban Design Group
Homeless Link	YMCA
International Archive of Education	York University
Joseph Rowntree Foundation

National Survey Data

The following lists the main national surveys which were included in the baselines. In general, national studies carried out since 1997 have been considered. However, where no suitable studies since 1997 exist, we have occasionally used data from earlier studies. We have tried to include data which is relevant to the precise scope of each theme. However, for some themes which have a very specific focus or where conducting research is very problematic, for example homelessness, no survey data has been discovered which is entirely relevant. We have chosen to include survey data which can add some context to the theme as background data, where appropriate.

Study		Reason for inclusion
Mental Health of children/adolescents in GB Report (1999, based on survey)		Quantitative survey of parents, children and teachers, relevant to child and adolescent mental health services theme
People’s Panel (1998-2000)		Nationally representative, includes data on overall performance
Surveys of Best Value Pilot Surveys (1998 and 2000)		Representative of pilot areas, includes data on overall performance
A Decade of Change (1999)		Nationally representative, includes data on overall performance
Survey of English Housing (1997/1998) and (1999/2000)		Nationally representative, includes data on overall performance
Citizen’s Charter Unit (1997)		Quantitative survey of local authority complainants relevant to overall performance
Local Government Association (1998)		Nationally representative, includes background data on overall performance
British Social Attitudes (1998)		Nationally representative, includes background data on overall performance
Best Value Performance Indicator Surveys (2000/2001)		Comparative data on overall performance, housing service, benefits service, planning service and library service collected by every authority
Schools’ Views of their LEA (2001)		National survey of schools consisting of data on LEA performance, relevant to transforming secondary education theme
Housing Forum survey (2000/1)		Nationally representative, includes data on quality of construction and on built environment theme
MORI Technology Tracker (on-going)		Nationally representative, includes data on usage of technology, relevant to social inclusion through ICT theme
ONS Internet Access study (on-going)		Nationally representative, includes data on usage of technology, relevant to social inclusion through ICT theme
British Crime Survey (2000)		Nationally representative, relevant to community cohesion theme
Public Attitudes to Architecture & the Built Environment survey (2002)		Nationally representative, relevant to built environment theme
Young People and ICT Report (2001, based on survey)		Nationally representative of children aged 5 to 18, relevant to social inclusion through ICT theme
Home Office Citizenship Survey (2001)		Nationally representative, relevant to community cohesion theme
Britain Beyond Rhetoric: delivering equality and social justice survey (2002)		Nationally representative, relevant to community cohesion theme
General Household Survey (2000/1)		Nationally representative of private households, relevant to community cohesion theme
ICT Access and Use Report (2001, based on survey)		Relevant to social inclusion through ICT theme
Labour Force Survey 2001		Nationally representative (UK) includes data relevant to removing barriers to work theme
Public Attitudes to Transport (2002)		Relevant to street and highway works theme

 

Technical Details

Below we give brief technical details of the main surveys that have been included in the national baselines.

• Local General BVPI surveys – all English authorities carried out representative surveys of their residents, via in-home or postal methodologies, using random probability sampling. The recommended minimum sample size was 1,100 per authority.
• Local Benefit BVPI surveys – all English authorities with responsibility for housing and council tax benefit carried out a survey of a randomly selected sample of benefits claimants. The recommended minimum sample size was 625 per authority.
• Local Housing BVPI surveys – all English authorities with responsibility for council owned housing stock carried out a survey of a randomly selected sample of people on the authority’s tenant houses address list.
• Local Planning BVPI surveys – all English authorities with responsibility for planning services carried out a survey of a randomly selected sample of planning applicants. The recommended minimum sample size was 400 per authority.
• Local Library BVPI surveys –all English authorities with responsibility for libraries carried out a survey of a randomly selected sample of library visitors to the authorities’ static libraries. The minimum sample size was 1,100 visitors.
• People’s Panel (1998 and 2000) – c5,000 adults recruited in-home to take part in on-going research, representative of UK as a whole, random probability sampling, recruited by MORI on behalf of the Cabinet Office. Further ‘waves’ of research have been carried out with a sample of the panel over the last two years.
• Survey of Best Value pilot authorities (1998 and 2000) – c2,500 adults living in Best Value pilot authorities, interviewed in-home using random probability sampling, carried out by MORI on behalf of Warwick Business School/DTLR. The sample is representative of those living in pilot authorities rather than of England and Wales as a whole, although the demographic profile is similar.
• A Decade of Change (1999) – c2,000 adults interviewed in-home using random probability sampling, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research on behalf of DETR. The sample is representative of English adults.
• British Crime Survey (2000) - 19,411 adults interviewed in-home using random probability sampling, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research on behalf of the Home Office. The sample is representative of adults in England and Wales and includes booster of ethnic minorities.
• Complaints Handling (1997) - c500 complainants from a sample of authorities interviewed in home, carried out by MORI on behalf of the Citizen’s Charter Unit.
• Survey of English Housing (referred to in this report as SEH) (1997-8 and 1999-2000). Interviews with c20,000 adults interviewed in home using random probability sampling, carried out by ONS on behalf of DETR.
• British Social Attitudes (1998 and 2000), nationally representative surveys of c3,000 adults, using random probability sampling, carried out by the National Centre for Social Research.
• Labour Force Survey (2001) a continuous, representative, survey of the labour market, with about 140,000 respondents taking part each quarter. Initial interviews are carried out in-home with subsequent interviews carried out by telephone by ONS.
• Schools’ Views of their LEA (2001) carried out by the Audit Commission on behalf of OFSTED. All schools in the 97 LEAs that were inspected between autumn term 1999 and summer term 2001 were sent a questionnaire. A total of 9,708 responses were received, a response rate of 79%.
• The Mental Health of Children and Adolescents in Great Britain report (1999) – based on a survey conducted by ONS on behalf of the DoH, the Scottish Health Executive and the National Assembly for Wales among parents, children and teachers. A total of 10,438 individuals interviewed, using a sample drawn from Child Benefit Records held by the Child Benefit Centre.
• Housing Forum survey (2000/1) – c.10,000 owners of newly built homes interviewed by MORI across Great Britain by telephone. The sample is representative of new home owners, but not of adults as a whole.
• MORI Technology Tracker study (on-going) – c.4,000 interviews with adults aged 15+ aggregated monthly from the MORI Omnibus survey. The MORI Omnibus is a bi-monthly representative quota survey of c2,000 adults aged 15+, in c190 sampling points throughout Britain. Interviews are conducted in home.
• Public Attitudes to Architecture & the Built Environment survey (2002) – a quota sample of 1,018 adults interviewed by MORI on behalf of CABE across the country with an additional ‘booster’ of 50 interviews among ethnic minorities. The sample is representative of adults in England.
• Young People and ICT report (2001) – based on interviews with 1,748 children between the ages of 5 and 18 (and their parents) across the country on behalf of the DfES, using random probability sampling. The sample is representative of children in England.
• Home Office Citizenship Survey (2001) – 10,015 adults living in private households interviewed in-home using Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing (CAPI) across England and Wales, with an additional ‘booster’ of 5,460 interviews among ethnic minorities. The sample is representative of adults in England and Wales.
• Britain Beyond Rhetoric: delivering equality and social justice (2002) – a quota survey of 822 adults interviewed by MORI in-home across Great Britain on behalf of the CRE, including additional ‘booster’ interviews among ethnic minorities. The sample is representative of adults in Great Britain.
• General Household Survey: Social Capital Module (2000/1) – randomly-selected interviews among 7,857 private households in Great Britain by ONS using a mixture of CAPI (computer-assisted personal interviewing) and CATI (computer-assisted telephone interviewing). The base size for the General Household Survey as a whole is 8,221.
• ICT Access and Use report (2001) – based on interviews with c.4,000 adults across the country on behalf of the DfES.
• Public Attitudes to Transport (2002) – a quota survey of 1,725 adults interviewed by MORI in-home across England on behalf of CfIT. The sample is representative of adults in England.

In addition to these national studies, as mentioned earlier, we have included many studies carried out by individual local authorities (1997-2002) which are in MORI’s benchmarking database. These studies are typically carried out in-home, using quota sampling within Enumeration Districts. Each study is representative of the commissioning local authority.

Evaluating Data Against National Baselines

Data included in this report can be classified into two categories: user satisfaction data (e.g. satisfaction with how an authority is running an area) and background ‘scene-setting’ data.

As highlighted in the Application Brochure, Beacon Councils must be able to show excellence in a theme as well as good general performance. User satisfaction data is a measure of performance, and therefore provides the opportunity for applicant authorities to benchmark their standards against each other.

Evaluating General Performance: BVPI Data

As mentioned earlier, an authority’s user satisfaction general performance data will be evaluated principally from an analysis of the BVPI data from the general survey.

Evaluating Other Survey Data

When an authority submits other survey data as part of its application for Beacon Status – either under general performance or a particular theme - MORI will evaluate the results it submitted against the baselines we have established, where available. Where possible we will offer our advice as to what may be considered evidence of excellence in the context of the specific themes, as well as good overall performance.

Where more than one relevant national baseline has been found, we will compare an applicant authority’s rating with the national baseline which most closely approximates to the authority’s data, taking into account methodology, question wording and answer scales.

If it is not possible to benchmark an authority’s survey data against national baselines, MORI will offer advice to the Panel on how councils are using survey evidence to improve their services, and will look for evidence of improving trends within the council over time.

Background Data

The net change in the number of businesses that have registered or deregistered for VAT, included in this report in the Supporting the Rural Economy theme, is one example of background data that the Advisory Panel may find useful. It can be interesting and worthwhile to compare data submitted by an authority against this type of national data: to understand, in this instance, whether business activity in the local area appears to be increasing or decreasing. However, it is not possible to evaluate background data in terms of good or excellent performance as we can with user satisfaction data.

 

Guidance on Data Analysis

It is important to be cautious when comparing findings from two or more different surveys if they are not designed to be fully comparable at the outset. Throughout this report, we have highlighted instances where particular care should be taken due to differences in methodology or definitions. It is important, when evaluating data submitted by applicant local authorities, to bear in mind the issues listed below, which may be at least as responsible for differences in survey findings as ‘real’ differences between the views of different local communities. MORI will offer advice on how valid a comparison is between an applicant’s survey data and national baselines when we carry out individual evaluations.

• Question wording: even seemingly slight differences in question wording can affect answers given.
• Answer scales: levels of satisfaction will be different if measured via a four-point scale (very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied, very dissatisfied) or a five-point scale that includes a mid-point (very satisfied, fairly satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, fairly dissatisfied, very dissatisfied).
• Questionnaire order: we have found in a number of studies for local authorities recently that local residents give a very different overall rating of their local authority if asked at the beginning, middle or end of the questionnaire. This is particularly pertinent when comparing data on the overall performance of local authorities – in many national studies, for instance the Best Value Pilots Evaluation studies of 1998 and 2000, the overall satisfaction question is asked at the beginning of the interview; in the General BVPI surveys authorities were required to include this question at the end of the questionnaire – this may well have affected the answers given.
• Methodology: a random face-to-face survey may yield very different answers to a self-completion postal survey, even with the same random probability sampling methodology. This may be due to higher response rates to postal surveys among certain demographic sub-groups (typically older and in higher socio-economic grades). As with questionnaire order, this may explain some of the differences in findings on overall satisfaction with authorities between national, face-to-face surveys, and General BVPI surveys, which were mostly conducted using a self-selecting postal methodology. There can also be differences between telephone surveys and those conducted using other methodologies.
• Demographic profiles: generally, results tend to be most positive in areas where there is a high proportion of residents in higher socio-economic grades. Care should be taken in comparing results between authorities with very different population profiles. A recent MORI Social Research Institute paper has demonstrated that deprivation levels is one of the key drivers of levels of overall satisfaction with a local authority’s performance.
• Users vs non-users: a study measuring satisfaction with, for example, recycling will give very different results based on residents as a whole compared with those who use the service. This is particularly important when considering some of the findings of the General BVPI surveys.
• Seasonality: the time of year the study is carried out may impact on the survey findings (for example, satisfaction with road gritting measured in July or January).
• External factors: analysing nationally representative MORI studies over recent years, we find satisfaction with local government is often correlated with other factors: satisfaction with central government, sense of economic well being and satisfaction with personal quality of life.

Net Measures

Throughout the report, reference is made to "net" figures. These represent the balance of opinion on attitudinal questions. In the case of a "net satisfaction" figure, this represents the percentage satisfied on a particular issue or service, less the percentage dissatisfied.

For example, if a service records 40% satisfied and 25% dissatisfied, the "net satisfaction" figure is +15 points. If 40% are satisfied and 35% dissatisfied, the "net" figure is +5 points. "Net satisfaction" measures are useful summary variables as:

• They provide a single figure summary;
• They take into account levels of both satisfaction and dissatisfaction.

Some caution needs to be taken when analysing "net" figures, as they do not take into account the proportion who are neutral or undecided. For example, a service which records a "net" satisfaction of +10 could have results of either (55% satisfied and 45% dissatisfied) or (10% satisfied, 0% dissatisfied and 90% don’t know). For this reason, we have included data tables which show levels of satisfaction and dissatisfaction as well as "net measures". In our evaluations, we will compare the per cent satisfied submitted by an authority with the most appropriate national baseline.

Further Reading

Some sections of this report include suggested further reading. This is not meant to be an exhaustive list, but details some relevant studies that have been suggested to us.

 

Overview

On the performance of local authorities as a whole and on some of the ten themes, there is a large amount of qualitative and quantitative data available from research among the general public, service users and a variety of stakeholder groups. However, for only some of these have we found national baseline data, which are relevant in the sense that local authorities may have asked similar questions using a comparable methodology. Our findings are shown below.

Theme	Reliable National Baseline?	Opportunity to benchmark authorities?
Overall Performance of Local Government	Many	Yes
Child and Adolescent Mental Health Services	Some	Possibly
Community Cohesion	Many	Yes
Removing Barriers to Work	No	No
Social Inclusion through ICT	Many	Yes
Supporting the Rural Economy	No	No
Tackling Homelessness	No	No
Transforming Secondary Education	Some	Possibly
Quality of the Built Environment	Some	Possibly
Rethinking Construction	Some	Possibly
Street and Highway Works	Some	Possibly

 

 

 

Part Two: Overall Performance of Local Government

Within the three broad banners of leadership, performance management and democratic and community engagement, seven performance measures have been established:

• satisfaction with how a council is running things/the area;
• value for money;
• how well informed residents feel they are kept;
• satisfaction with complaints handling;
• overall quality of services;
• how residents have been consulted;
• community leadership.

Many of these issues lend themselves well to quantitative survey research. The following table illustrates the extent of survey data collected by local authorities.

Issue	Reliable National Baseline?	Number of LA studies	Consistency of question wording
How a council is running things/the area	Yes	Many	Mainly consistent
Value for money	Yes	Many	Mainly consistent
Well informed	Yes	Many	Mainly consistent
Satisfaction with complaints handling	Yes	Many	Mainly consistent
Overall quality of services	Yes	Many	Mainly consistent
Have residents been consulted	Yes	Some	Different question wordings
Community leadership	Few	Few	Different question wordings

In addition, in 2000/2001 all local authorities in England were required to undertake surveys of their residents, using two of the performance indicators above (how a council is running things and satisfaction with complaints handling). They were also required to establish satisfaction with the range of services they provide. Full details of the BVPI surveys and what they show us about the overall performance of local government are discussed in the next section. The seven performance indicators referred to above are now discussed in turn.

1. Overall satisfaction with how an authority is running an area

This is a key performance measure, and most authorities should have some survey data on this issue, in addition to the data they will have collected from the statutory BVPI surveys. Some take the view that they do not ‘run the area’ as such, and prefer to ask residents whether they are ‘doing a good job overall’, or break down their performance into component parts, e.g. satisfaction with the way they provide services, with the way they represent their community etc.

Satisfaction with local government – using these national performance measures - has fallen over recent years. The deterioration in net satisfaction from 1998-2000 (emboldened in the first two columns of the table below) is confirmed by a number of regular MORI Omnibus national tracking studies as well as studies for different individual authorities. The higher level of satisfaction recorded by National Centre and Survey of English Housing may be due mainly to different answer scales used.

This question is also asked in local authorities’ BVPI General surveys; the aggregated results of all respondents is shown below.

Satisfaction with quality of local council/running an area/running things
(Bases)	People’s Panel 1998 England (4,380)	People’s Panel 2000 England tracking (923)	People’s Panel 2000 England (923)	Best Value 1998 Pilots (2,488)	Best Value 2000   (2,515)	Nat Centre 1999 England (2,074)	SEH 1999-2000² England (18,000)	BVPI 2000/ 2001 England (538,992)
Very satisfied	8	7	5	8	7	5	9	10
(Fairly) satisfied	44	43	50	46	45	67	59	55
Neither/nor	27	23	23	17	19	N/a	N/a	23
(Fairly) dissatisfied	12	16	14	17	17	22	17	9
Very dissatisfied	5	7	6	8	8	4	10	3
Don’t know	3	4	2	4	4	2	6	N/a
Satisfied	52	50	55	54	52	72	67	65
Dissatisfied	17	23	20	25	25	26	27	12
Net satisfied	+35	+27	+35	+29	+27	+46	+40	+53

 

 

The following table shows satisfaction with local authorities analysed by authority type, based firstly on the National Centre’s 1999 survey of more than 2000 residents, secondly from MORI’s 2000 survey of Best Value authorities, thirdly from aggregated findings of the BVPI surveys and finally aggregating individual results for different authorities.

The National Centre study measures satisfaction using a four point scale (very satisfied, satisfied, dissatisfied and very dissatisfied), while the Best Value, BVPI and individual studies shown below use a five point scale (very satisfied, fairly satisfied, neither satisfied nor dissatisfied, fairly dissatisfied, very dissatisfied).

As is shown below, single-tier authorities are less well rated than two-tier. This may be linked to demographics: evidence suggests that those in higher socio-economic grades (who live more in two-tier areas) typically rate their authority more highly than others.

Satisfaction with authority running an area/running things
	Very/ Satisfied	Very/ Dissatisfied	Net
National Centre 1999 (4-point scale)
Overall	72	26	+46
County Council	74	20	+54
District Council	76	22	+54
Mets	65	33	+32
Unitaries	69	29	+40
London Boroughs	69	28	+41
	Very/fairly satisfied	Very/fairly dissatisfied	Net
Best Value Pilots 2000 (5 point scale)
Overall	52	25	+27
County Council	53	21	+32
District Council	60	19	+41
Mets	38	38	0
Unitaries	52	27	+25
London Boroughs	59	19	+40
BVPI surveys 2000/2001 (5 point scale)
Overall	65	12	+53
County Council	63	10	+53
District Council	68	11	+57
Mets	63	16	+47
Unitaries	62	13	+49
London Boroughs	54	21	+33
Local Authority Studies (5-point scale)
Mean Overall (121 studies)	61	18	+43
Median Counties (19 studies)	62	13	+49
Median Districts (46 studies)	66	13	+53
Median Unitaries (21 studies)	58	18	+40
Median London Boroughs (20 studies)	58	23	+35

 

 

2. Value for Money

Many residents are unaware of the financial constraints under which local authorities operate, including the extent to which expenditure is funded by Council Tax, Business Rates and Central Government funding. In two-tier authorities, residents are often unfamiliar with the relative proportions spent by County and District Councils. Despite a widespread lack of awareness, perceived value for money can be considered another key performance indicator, as it correlates strongly with overall satisfaction with how an authority is run.

The following table provides national benchmarking data on perceived value for money. The question wording is slightly different in each case.

Value for Money
	Best Value 1998 (Pilots)	Best Value 2000 (Pilots)	Nat Centre 1999 (England)	SEH 1999 - 2000 (England)
(Bases)	(2488)	(2515)	(2074)	(c18,000)
Agree strongly/very good	3	3	1	4
Tend to agree/good	37	34	32	33
Neither	21	24	32	25
Tend to disagree/poor	24	23	25	23
Strongly disagree/very poor	9	10	5	9
Don’t know	6	6	4	6
Agree/good	40	37	33	37
Disagree/poor	33	33	30	32
Net agree/net good	+7	+4	+3	+5

 

 

Analysing the different baseline measures shown in the table below suggests evidence of good performance on this measure would be a positive ‘net rating’ for London Boroughs and Metropolitan authorities, and a ‘net rating’ of around +10 for a two-tier authority.

Value for Money
	Very/good value	Very/poor value	Net good
National Centre 1999
Overall	33	30	+3
Two-tier	36	28	+8
Mets	35	30	+5
Unitaries	28	33	-5
London Boroughs	30	33	-3
	Agree strongly/ Tend to	Disagree strongly/ tend to	Net agree
Best Value Pilots 2000
Overall	37	33	+4
County Council	38	36	+2
District Council	43	28	+15
Mets	28	43	-15
Unitaries	39	30	+9
London Boroughs	38	24	+14
Local Authority Studies
Mean Overall (95 studies)	41	28	+13
Median Counties (18 studies)	39	29	+10
Median Districts (36 studies)	42	26	+16
Median Mets (13 studies)	40	33	+7
Median – Unitaries (18 studies)	45	28	+17

 

3. Overall quality of services

Ratings of individual services provided by local authorities vary dramatically from service to service (some of these are highlighted under the individual themes later in this report). The following table shows an overall measure of the quality of services provided by local authorities, against which applications for Beacon Status can be benchmarked. It should be borne in mind that some residents will wrongly attribute services to local authorities when they make this overall judgement.

Q To what extent do you agree or disagree that xxx Council provides good quality services overall?
	Best Value 1998 (2488)	Best Value 2000 (2515)		SEH 1999-2000 (c18,000)
	%	%		%
Strongly agree	6	5		8
Tend to agree	58	57		54
Neither agree nor disagree	16	18		19
Tend to disagree	13	13		13
Strongly disagree	4	5		4
Don’t know	3	3		3
Agree	64	62		62
Disagree	17	17		17
Net agree	+47	+45		+45

 

 

 

There is notable variation by authority type, as is shown in the table below, with two-tier authorities tending to be better rated and Metropolitan areas, in particular, generally less well regarded.

Good Quality of Services Overall
	Agree strongly/ Tend to	Disagree strongly/ tend to	Net Agree
Best Value Pilots 2000
Overall	62	17	+45
County Council	66	13	+53
District Council	68	11	+57
Mets	53	25	+28
Unitaries	63	19	+44
London Boroughs	57	19	+38
	Agree strongly /tend to	Disagree strongly /tend to	Net Agree
Local Authority Studies
Mean Overall (102 studies)	63	15	+48
Median Counties (17 studies)	63	13	+50
Median Districts (44 studies)	68	11	+57
Median Unitaries (19 studies)	65	14	+51
Source: MORI

 

 

4. Satisfaction with Handling of Complaints

There are two national benchmarking surveys of complaints handling: the 1998 survey of Best Value pilot authorities and more detailed work carried out by MORI on behalf of the Citizen’s Charter Unit (CCU). In addition, there is the question asked by local authorities in their General BVPI surveys.

The definition of a ‘complainant’ is key. Many residents will consider they have made a complaint when they have called to report a problem such as missed refuse collection, whereas authorities may carry out survey research among people whose complaint has been recorded formally; a far smaller proportion. Interestingly, the table below, which gives results based on self-defined complainants (Best Value and BVPIs) and on those whose complaint has reached Stages 1, 2 or 3 of a formal procedure (Citizen’s Charter Unit), suggests there is little difference in satisfaction with the final outcome.

The BVPI results for this question will be used in our evaluation of general performance.

Satisfaction with final outcome of complaint
(Bases)	Best Value 1998 (327)	Best Value 2000 (316)	BVPIs 2000/2001 (103,630)	CCU 1997 (556)
Very satisfied	16	15	18	15
Fairly satisfied	21	20	22	18
Neither	5	8	9	8
Fairly dissatisfied	13	14	22	14
Very dissatisfied	43	38	29	41
Don’t know	3	4	N/a	5
Satisfied	37	36	40	33
Dissatisfied	56	52	51	55
Net satisfied	-19	-16	-11	-22
Source: MORI

 

There is little difference in complainants’ satisfaction with the final outcome of their complaint and with the process, i.e. the way it was handled.

Satisfaction with Complaints
(Bases)	Final Outcome CCU 1997 (556)	Handling of Complaint CCU 1997 (556)
Very satisfied	15	13
Fairly satisfied	18	16
Neither	8	13
Fairly dissatisfied	14	16
Very dissatisfied	41	38
Don’t know	5	3
Satisfied	33	29
Dissatisfied	55	54
Net satisfied	-22	-25
Source: MORI

As highlighted by the data in the previous tables, the majority of complainants are critical of local authority complaints handling. This therefore provides a benchmark for making comparisons across authorities.

5. Well informed

Research has shown that how well informed residents feel they are kept about the activities of local authorities is a key driver of overall satisfaction with a local authority’s performance. It can also help to build a sense of engagement with the local community.

Q How well informed do you think the council keeps residents about the services and benefits it provides?
	People’s Panel 1998	People’s Panel 2000	Best Value 1998	Best Value 2000	SEH¹ 1999-2000
	England	England
(Bases)	(4380)	(923)	(2488)	(2515)	(c18,000)
Very well informed/Very well	9	7	7	6	11
Fairly well informed/Fairly well	42	45	38	37	47
Limited amount of information/ Not very well	29	26	30	32	28
Does not tell us much at all/Not at all well	16	19	20	20	9
Don’t know	5	3	5	4	5
Very/fairly	51	52	45	43	58