Mayo County Council has scored very well among 21 local authorities surveyed in the NOAC Local Authority Satisfaction Survey 2018 and 2019, which was published earlier this week.
The council was among 11 local authorities included in the survey which was carried out in March this year. The survey found that: (1 ) 60 per cent of those surveyed said that Mayo County Council was doing a good job; (2 ) 56 per cent agreed that the council promotes economic activity; (3 ) 52 per cent were satisfied with the council; (4 ) 48 per cent were satisfied with its openness and transparency; (5 ) 41 per cent agreed that they were well informed and 19 per cent rated Mayo County Council as providing good value for money.
The findings are contained in the Local Authority Satisfaction Survey 2019 from the National Oversight and Audit Commission (NOAC ). The survey is the second of three to be carried out by Ipsos MRBI for NOAC. The first survey was carried out in 2018 and covered 10 local authorities - the 2019 survey researched another 11 local authorities and in 2020 the remaining 10 will be surveyed.
Colleen Savage, chair of the NOAC Customer Survey subcommittee, said: "While the perception of local authorities is generally positive overall the surveys suggests that local councils need to be more proactive in communicating with those living in their area."
She said that although the local authority areas surveyed were different in 2019 to 2018, the results were broadly similar. The most important services according to the survey provided by councils fell into four main categories; roads and road safety, housing, amenities and environmental protection.
Spontaneous awareness is low for all services except road maintenance (66 per cent ) and local authority housing (58 per cent ). About one in three people surveyed said that they contacted their council in the last five years, with housing topping the list of reasons for this contact.
Overall, over half were satisfied with how their query was handled (51 per cent ). Those who contacted their council in the last five years tended to be less satisfied with their council than those who didn’t (30 per cent vs 7 per cent dissatisfied ). This is likely to be a result of the overall outcome of how their query was handled, with 87 per cent of those who had a positive experience indicating that they are satisfied with their council overall, compared to 13 per cent of those who were unhappy with how their query was handled.
On average 93 per cent agreed that their local area is a good place to live and almost 80 per cent agreed that their local area is a good place to work. There was also a strong or very strong sense of belonging to their local area at 87 per cent, although there was a variance between the larger and smaller council areas with 84 per cent feeling a sense of belonging in the larger areas and 90 per cent in the smaller areas. The full survey details are available at www.noac.ie
