Wollongong City Council Community Satisfaction Survey 2019 Final Report Prepared for Wollongong City Council Prepared by IRIS Research December 2019 IRIS ReResearchsearch ABN 16 002 278 793 POST: Office A, Wing C, Level 1, iC Central, Innovation Campus, University of Wollongong, Wollongong NSW 2522 OFFICES: iC Central, Innovation Campus, North Wollongong NSW 2500 Net: http://www.iris.org.au Email: [email protected] © IRIS Research, December 2019 TABLE OF CONTENTS LIST OF TABLES .......................................................................................................................................................... iii LIST OF FIGURES......................................................................................................................................................... v KEY FINDINGS ............................................................................................................................................................. vi INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................................................................... vii SUMMARY OF FINDINGS ......................................................................................................................................... viii RESEARCH DESIGN ..................................................................................................................................................... 1 1 OVERALL SATISFACTION .................................................................................................................................. 7 1.1 Performance of Wollongong City Council........................................................................................... 7 1.2 Reasons for Dissatisfaction ............................................................................................................... 11 2 COUNCIL SERVICES & FACILITIES ............................................................................................................... 12 2.1 Facility Usage ......................................................................................................................................... 14 2.2 Facilities .................................................................................................................................................. 17 2.3 Direct Services ....................................................................................................................................... 21 2.4 Indirect Services .................................................................................................................................... 25 3 PRIORITISING SERVICES & FACILITIES ...................................................................................................... 29 3.1 Quadrant Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 29 3.2 Facility Utilisation .................................................................................................................................. 38 3.3 Residents’ Wish List ............................................................................................................................. 40 4 ORGANISATIONAL SKILLS ............................................................................................................................. 42 4.1 Satisfaction with Council’s staff ....................................................................................................... 42 4.2 Perceptions of Council’s organisational skills ............................................................................... 44 4.3 How improvement in skills drove higher satisfaction .................................................................. 49 5 CUSTOMER SERVICES ................................................................................................................................... 51 5.1 Recent contact with Council .............................................................................................................. 51 5.2 Method of Contact (past 12 months) .............................................................................................. 52 5.3 Reason for Contact (past 12 months) ............................................................................................ 54 5.4 Customer Experience ........................................................................................................................... 55 6 COMMUNICATION ............................................................................................................................................ 59 6.1 Receiving information from Wollongong City Council ................................................................. 59 6.2 Contacting Wollongong City Council ................................................................................................ 63 6.3 Council community engagement activities .................................................................................... 65 6.4 Council Website ..................................................................................................................................... 67 6.5 Council Events ........................................................................................................................................ 69 APPENDIX 1 – SUBGROUP ANALYSIS ................................................................................................................. 71 ii LIST OF TABLES Table 1 Summary of Facilities ................................................................................................................................ xi Table 2 Summary of Direct Services ................................................................................................................... xii Table 3 Summary of Indirect Services ............................................................................................................... xiii Table 1.1 Overall satisfaction with Wollongong City Council – Subgroup Analysis .................................... 8 Table 2.1 Facility Usage Frequency .................................................................................................................... 14 Table 2.2 Facility Usage Frequency – Subgroup Analysis ............................................................................. 15 Table 2.3 Facility Usage Frequency – Comparison with 2017 ..................................................................... 16 Table 2.4 Facilities – Subgroup Analysis ........................................................................................................... 18 Table 2.5 Facilities – Internal Benchmarks ...................................................................................................... 19 Table 2.6 Facilities – External Benchmarks ..................................................................................................... 20 Table 2.7 Direct Services – Subgroup Analysis ................................................................................................ 22 Table 2.8 Direct Services – Internal Benchmarks ........................................................................................... 23 Table 2.9 Direct Services – External Benchmarks .......................................................................................... 24 Table 2.10 Indirect Services – Subgroup Analysis .......................................................................................... 26 Table 2.11 Indirect Services – Internal Benchmarks ..................................................................................... 27 Table 2.12 Indirect Services – External Benchmarks .................................................................................... 28 Table 3.1 Quadrant Analysis ................................................................................................................................. 30 Table 3.2 Quadrant Analysis by Service Category ........................................................................................... 33 Table 3.3 Satisfaction with services and facilities by Overall satisfaction rating ................................... 35 Table 3.4 Satisfaction with services and facilities by Frequency of hearing negative media .............. 37 Table 3.5 Performance/Usage Quadrant ........................................................................................................... 39 Table 4.1 Satisfaction with Council’s staff – Subgroup Analysis ................................................................ 43 Table 4.2 Perceptions of Council’s organisational skills – Subgroup Analysis ........................................ 45 Table 4.3 Perceptions of Council’s organisational skills – Internal Benchmarks ................................... 46 Table 4.4 Organisational skills by Frequency of hearing negative media ................................................. 47 Table 4.5 Improvement by 2017 grouping of services and facilities ......................................................... 50 Table 5.1 Method of contact (past 12 months) – Subgroup Analysis ....................................................... 52 Table 5.2 Method of contact (past 12 months) – Comparison with 2017 ............................................... 53 Table 5.3 Reason for contact (past 12 months) – Subgroup Analysis.....................................................