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Pittwater Council Vision - To be a vibrant sustainable community of connected villages inspired by bush, beach and water.

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Main Content

Community Survey Results

Background

In September 2010 Pittwater Council completed the first comprehensive community survey with Pittwater residents.

The intention of this survey was to gather data to evaluate the Pittwater 2020 Community Strategic Plan targets and to assess resident satisfaction with Council’s performance.

Methodology

Pittwater Council engaged an independent consultant to undertake a telephone survey with 400 randomly selected residents over the age of 18. This is a significant sample size with survey respondents matching the demographics of the Pittwater community according to Australian Bureau of Statistics (ABS) 2006 census data.

Key Findings

The results indicate the Council has performed positively, with 29 out of 33 service areas rated from ‘moderate’ to ‘high’ satisfaction.  The results also revealed that Pittwater residents are more satisfied with Pittwater than the benchmark score for local government’s ‘overall satisfaction’.

Survey respondents were asked about the importance and their level of satisfaction with 33 key service delivery areas of Council. The following provides a summary of the areas according to their combined importance and satisfaction ratings.


Higher importance, lower satisfaction

  • Maintaining local roads
  • Providing and maintaining footpaths
  • Managing development
  • Availability of car parking in village centres
  • Level of access to health services
  • Providing adequate drainage
  • Community involvement in decision making


Higher importance, higher satisfaction

  • Managing natural hazards
  • Keeping villages and surrounding areas beautiful
  • Council provision of information to the community
  • Litter control and rubbish dumping
  • Environmental and sustainability initiatives
  • Managing and protecting creeks and waterways
  • Protecting native plants and animals
  • Restoring natural bushland
  • Facilities and services at beaches
  • Domestic waste collection services
  • Cleanliness of beaches and ocean pools
  • Providing and operating libraries


Lower importance, lower satisfaction

  • Facilities and services for youth
  • Managing feral animals
  • Provision of cycle paths and walking tracks
  • Protecting heritage values & buildings
  • Domestic animal management
  • Facilities and services for older people
  • Overall range and quality of cultural facilities and activities
  • Access to Council information and Council support


Lower importance, higher satisfaction

  • Childcare facilities and services
  • Support to local business
  • Overall range and quality of sporting and recreational facilities and activities
  • Overall range and quality of community facilities and activities
  • Maintaining waterway facilities
  • Coastal Environment Centre


It is important to note that Council will continue to focus on all the areas identified to ensure that an acceptable level of service delivery is maintained.  The quadrant analysis however does indicate that there are some areas that will need to be a higher priority for Council to ensure that service delivery areas of high importance to the community are well maintained or improved.  Council will also examine service delivery areas which were rated with less than moderate satisfaction levels.

Key Pittwater 2020 Strategic Plan target findings included:

  • 96% of residents indicate they ‘have a sense of belonging within the local community’
  • 92% indicate that they feel safe within their community
  • 71% of residents indicated that they feel ‘Council operates under ethical, open and transparent processes’
  • 99% of residents regularly recycle household waste
  • 83% of residents use water saving measures/device

Summary

An important outcome of the community survey is that Council now has robust data that can be used to plan for the future.

For further information contact Jane Mulroney on 9970 1108.