Citizens Enjoy Good Quality of Life & Satisfied with City Services: 2017 Civic Services Survey

Citizens are increasingly more satisfied with City services says the latest Civic Services Survey.  This is one of the many results from the 2017 Civic Services Survey and Citizen Budget, both of which will be presented next week to the Governance and Priorities Committee.

The results are one important way the City gathers input to understand the needs and perceptions of citizens, and to identify areas which need added focus in the coming year.  City Council and Administration will consider the information gathered to help shape the City’s Corporate Business Plan and Budget for 2018.

“It’s great to see citizens’ continue to have an overall high level of satisfaction with the many services the City provides.  Since 2013, overall satisfaction provided by the City has seen an increase,” says Carla Blumers, Director of Communications. “When comparing the latest results with 2013, satisfaction increased from 83% to 88% for telephone respondents.  It is even more encouraging when you see online respondents overall satisfaction moving from 73% to 85%.”

In 2015, the City established a performance target of overall satisfaction with civic services of 90% or more. “Looking at the 2017 Survey results, it shows how close citizens feel the City is to getting over the goal-line,” says Blumers.

The majority of respondents on the survey continue to rate the quality of life as high (89% telephone and 85% online).  These results have held steady since 2013.

“While the most important issue facing the City continues to be roads and sidewalks, significantly fewer citizens identify this as the most important issue when compared with the 2013 results,” says Blumers.  The investment in the Building Better Roads program since 2014 is definitely making a difference.  In 2013, 35% of telephone and 31% of online respondents cited roads as the number one issue. By 2017 the percentage declined by 15% for telephone and 17% for online respondents. 

Civic Services Survey Highlights:

• 89% of telephone and 85% of online respondents rate the quality of life in Saskatoon as good or very good. A majority feel the quality of life has remained the same or improved within the last three years.
• 79% of telephone and 74% of online respondents agree the City is on the right track to making Saskatoon a better city 10 years from now.
• Roads and sidewalks continue to be the most important issue facing the city, followed by crime/policing, taxation levels, social issues and spending.
• Several specific services saw increases in satisfaction from online respondents, including: repair of water main breaks, removing contaminants from waste-water, maintenance of roadways and freeways, and street maintenance in one’s neighbourhood.
• Overall satisfaction with the quality of City information and communications is strong among both telephone and online respondents (85% telephone, 88% online).
• When interacting with the City, citizens give high ratings for customer service related activities such as staff being courteous, helpful, knowledgeable, and practicing open and accessible government. Respondents provide lower ratings for community engagement related activities such as using input from the public in decision-making, and allowing citizens to have meaningful input.
• The majority of residents believe they receive good value for what they pay in property taxes (84% telephone and 76% online). This question was last asked in 2014 where results were significantly lower.
• The majority of citizens would prefer a combination of user fees and property taxes as the most appropriate way to pay for services and balance the City’s operating budget.

Citizen Budget Highlights:

• The combined engagement results from the online Citizen Budget tool and Civic Services Survey show that citizens prefer to keep service levels/spending the same for eleven categories.  The exception is a slightly higher preference to increase service levels/spending on roads and affordable housing.
• However, the percentage of citizens who identified a preference to increase service levels/spending for Road Maintenance is significantly lower than the previous year (52% in 2017 versus 63% in 2016).

A total of 500 telephone and 800 online surveys were completed for the Civic Services Survey. There were nearly 1,600 unique visitors to the online Citizen Budget tool and 554 citizens submitted a response.

The Civic Services Survey and Citizen Budget are one of many citizen inputs that will help to inform City Council during discussions on the 2018 Corporate Business Plan and Budget plans.

The detailed findings of the 2017 Civic Services Survey  and the 2017 Citizen Budget are available at saskatoon.ca/financialfuture.