Perceptions research to gain insight into Kingston residents’ opinions about Council services and the local area
Waves of the survey undertaken for Kingston Council
Telephone and face-to-face interviews achieved each wave
Reporting outputs produced
Challenge
The Royal Borough of Kingston upon Thames (Kingston Council) undertakes an annual residents’ survey as part of its evidence base building to support planning and delivery of services to its residents.
Each year the survey aims to gauge residents’ opinions towards how the Council operates, the value for money the Council provides, safety in their local area, problems identified within their local area and high priorities to tackle, and satisfaction with a range of Council and local services.
Enventure Research was commissioned to undertake the survey and report on the findings for two consecutive years.
Approach
The research was conducted predominantly via a telephone survey, however a number of face-to-face interviews were completed on street to achieve quotas with both younger residents and minority ethnic groups.
A questionnaire was designed in partnership between Kingston Council and Enventure Research. To allow for direct comparisons to be made, some of the same questions asked in previous years’ surveys were used in this survey. Trained market research interviewers administered the survey with residents either via telephone or face-to-face. Quotas were set on gender, age, ethnicity, disability and neighbourhood according to the most up to date population data.
Interviewer shifts took place at different times, on both weekdays and weekends, to ensure that all segments of the community had an equal opportunity to participate. Face-to-face interviews were conducted in areas of high footfall.
Outcome
In each wave of the research, 1,000 interviews with a representative sample of Kingston residents were achieved.
Enventure Research undertook detailed analysis of the findings, producing a comprehensive written report, including comparisons with previous years’ findings and subgroup analysis to show comparisons between different groups of respondents. An infographic report was also produced to present the findings in a visual and easy to understand way, and the Council was also provided with the dataset and cross-tabulated results.
The findings provided Kingston Council with up to date information about its residents’ perceptions of its services and the local area, and were used to inform service planning and delivery.
Insightful research. Expertly delivered.
