Residents views put a lens on Council performance

The annual Residents Survey indicates that overall satisfaction with Christchurch City Council’s performance is up slightly on last year.

Overall satisfaction is sitting at 46% for 2023/24 – a small improvement on last year’s 43%. The number of service areas that residents have indicated a high level of satisfaction with has also increased.

As in previous years, the services with the highest levels of satisfaction among residents were services where residents have direct contact with Council staff who they see as approachable, knowledgeable and helpful. These included customer services, libraries, recreation and sport centres, waste management, the Botanic Gardens, Hagley Park and Mona Vale, cemetery administration and partnership approval services, resource consenting and education programmes.

Residents rate the kerbside three-bin waste management system as the service we deliver the best, followed by parks and libraries.

The kerbside three-bin waste management system remains the Council service residents say we deliver best, followed by parks and libraries.

“While at times our residents express conflicting views and perceptions on how our services are performing, they are clear in their expectation that we will address the issues they raise,” says Interim Chief Executive Mary Richardson.

“Over the past year we have concentrated on making changes targeted at improving our service levels. We are beginning to see improvements in some areas and we will continue to respond to our residents’ feedback.”

More services scored in the ‘higher satisfaction’ category (85% or higher) this year, at 44% of all services, up from 28% last year. These included community events and facilities and regional parks presentation.

Satisfaction with the resource consents process saw a 15% improvement, to bring it into the higher satisfaction service list for the first time, and a third of services improved their satisfaction ratings by more than 4%, including stormwater management, wastewater and water supply reliability and responsiveness and footpath condition.

View the results in more detail at ccc.govt.nz/residents-survey

“Significant challenges remain for us – feedback shows that dissatisfaction is highest in the areas that require the most capital investment to address at a time when the Council is facing major budget challenges and residents are telling us they do not want to increase rates. The Residents Survey results demonstrate the difficult decisions the Council has to make given the, at times, conflicting resident perceptions and priorities,” Ms Richardson says. 

The Residents Survey programme involved two pieces of research – the Point of Contact Surveys done throughout the past year with 9014 Council customers and the online General Service Satisfaction Survey with a representative sample of 771 people done in January 2024.