Residents give their views

Nearly 70% of people who took part in a survey about council services felt Hertsmere was providing good value for money.

Members of Hertsmere Panel, volunteers from across the borough, were asked about a range of different services provided by the borough.

Questions included measuring public awareness of the services the council provides; the use of our website; how people like to get in touch with councillors and how they receive information from us. The survey also asked a number of questions around the ABC system for waste and recycling in the borough and their local environment.

More than 650 people responded to the survey at the end of last year, the results of which have just been published.

Cllr Morris Bright, Leader of the Council, said: "We are keen to get views from our residents and regularly consult to help us understand what is important to them.

"The results are very encouraging - 69% of respondents feel we provide good value for money for the £128 they paid last year  - the average proportion of their council tax which goes to Hertsmere.

“We were also keen to ask about our ABC scheme, something we have always said we would do as part of our on-going review of the scheme. It is encouraging that 77% of people said that it has prompted them to recycle more which can only be good news for the environment.

“We also asked residents about how they felt the scheme was working and got some important feedback on that issue which will help us in the future.”

Key results from the survey include:

• 81% of respondents said collection and disposal of domestic waste was important to them, but only 33% felt that this needed improving;
• 29% of people said that reducing litter was important to them but it was the top issue (39%) of things that people felt most needed improving;
• 40% of respondents from Borehamwood felt reducing litter was important, while just 19% of people in Potters Bar were concerned about this;
• Of least importance about the local environment was pest control, abandoned vehicles and levels of noise pollution;
• Of the ABC scheme, 68% of panellists said the system was easy to understand and 77% said it had encouraged them to recycle more;
• Nearly a quarter, 24% felt it was working well and 44% felt it was working adequately;
• Of those who did not feel it was working well (32%), not enough room in the black box and a complicated system were cited as reasons;
• Only 41% of respondents knew who their local councillor was, but 74% knew how to find out their details if they needed to;
• The majority of panellists would contact councillors by email (53%) and then telephone (47%).In relation to communicating with residents, two thirds of respondents said they regularly received a copy of the council’s quarterly magazine Hertsmere News at their homes.

Respondents also said they would prefer to get information delivered direct to their door on a regular basis (71%), more than double than receiving information in newspaper articles.

Cllr Bright added: “The results of our latest survey are very interesting and we will be looking at how we can take on board the comments that have been made to help develop our services further.”

The full report  (53 pages, 787KB) was produced by independent research company Opinion Research Services.