The Place Survey in Wealden
The Place Survey gave 3,000 Wealden residents the chance to put forward their views about public services and the quality of life in their local area.
Every two years, all local authorities in England are required to carry out a Place Survey. The purpose of this survey is to find out what issues concern local people and what they think about the services they receive from a range of agencies including Wealden District Council, East Sussex County Council, the Police, Fire and Rescue Service and Primary Care Trusts. Residents' answers help us to work together to address issues of local concern and to see how and where our services can be improved.
The Place Survey questionnaires were sent out between September and November, and we are grateful to everyone who responded.
Councils across East Sussex are working together to make cost savings. We jointly selected Ipsos MORI, an independent market research company to carry out the survey on our behalf.
How the results will be used
Wealden's results have been reported to the Council at the Cabinet meeting on 22 July 2009, together with other performance data. This Cabinet report is available on our website. We have published a media release on the results, also available online.
The full Wealden Place Survey 2008 report is available on our Customer Satisfaction webpage.
National place survey results are published on the Department for Communities and Local Government's website (external link).
Residents' answers to the questions in the Place Survey are very important to us. We will be working with our partners across the public sector to address the issues brought out in people's responses to the survey and will use them to see how we can further improve our services.
The Place Survey takes place every two years and will be sent out again to a new sample of residents in 2010 so that we can track how we are doing.
Background to the performance surveys and indicators
The Place Survey replaces the Best Value General Satisfaction Survey last conducted in 2006. The new survey focuses more on improving outcomes for local people and places – rather than on processes, institutions and inputs – because many issues that matter to people need to be tackled by several organisations working together.
For further information on these surveys and performance indicators, please visit our Place Survey background page.