Community Perceptions Survey 2016

In May of this year, the City of South Perth undertook a biennial Community Perceptions Survey through an independent consultant to better understand the needs of our residents and evaluate the City’s performance against measures of success in the Strategic Community Plan.

Invitations to complete the survey were mailed out to 2,000 randomly selected households in the City plus emailed to an additional 2,200 households. In total, 528 residents submitted a response.

Over the past two years 25 local authorities in WA have participated in a survey to ascertain how they are performing. Of those 25 local governments, the City ranked seventh overall with a score of 74 out of 100. The results show that residents love living here, with the City’s ‘place to live’ index score trending upwards since 2012 from 79 out of 100, to 88 this year. This was one of the highest ratings, and 11 points above the industry average.

Additionally, the survey evaluates and monitors the City’s performance across a number of other areas, such as  governance, communication, community engagement and service delivery.

It found that the City ranked highly in the areas of:
• Recycling collections
• Library services
• Festivals and events
• Playgrounds, parks and reserves

Moving forward, the community would like the City to focus on improving in the areas of:
• Planning and building approval timeframes 
• Open communication with Councillors, with elected members broadening their understanding of community needs 
• Parking management and control
• Streetscapes – including verge maintenance, more trees and revitalisation of derelict properties.
• Bulk waste verge-side collections
• Traffic management 

“Listening to residents, hearing their feedback and responding to it, is what the survey is all about.  As a City and Council we are committed to work towards continually improving to better meet the needs and expectations of our local community. Also, this survey enables us to evaluate community priorities and measure our performance against key indicators in the Strategic Community Plan,” Mayor Sue Doherty said.  

“On behalf of the elected members and City’s staff thanks to everyone who took the time to complete the survey and provide their feedback, it is greatly appreciated.”