A RECENT survey of Frankston residents has revealed that opinions of Frankston Council are improving.
The survey of more than 800 people found that around 71 per cent of residents are satisfied overall with the performance of Frankston Council. That statistic is an increase on last year’s figure of 67 per cent. The survey report read that the average satisfaction rate for metropolitan Victorian councils is 66 per cent.
The Metropolis Research report read that satisfaction with Frankston Council’s community decisions, advocacy, consultation, and overall leadership had each risen by at least 10 per cent. Satisfaction with council’s customer service dropped by 4 per cent.
Frankston mayor Nathan Conroy said that the results are “positive” for council. “It is good to see we are continuing to meet, and outstrip, the expectations of our community. Council has put a concerted effort into our lobbying and advocacy this year and the positive results are clear,” he said.
Local Government Victoria conducts a community satisfaction survey each year. However, Frankston Council has not taken part in that survey in the last two years.
The Local Government Victoria survey was undertaken by JWS Research. 67 of 79 Victorian councils took part. In 2021 and 2022, Frankston Council instead engaged Metropolis Research to undertake a community satisfaction survey on behalf of council.
Conroy told The Times that council engages its own contractor to run the survey to give it “greater flexibility to include additional questions, in addition to those required by Local Government Victoria, and to have an increased sample size of 800 responses.”
“The community satisfaction survey undertaken by council is the same as the Local Government Victoria’s annual community satisfaction survey – the only point of difference is that Frankston appoints our own contractor to carry out the survey,” he said. “All councils, including Frankston, are required to submit their results to the state government by the end of September for comparison. Local Government Victoria then releases the results publicly on the Know your Council website. Frankston City Council complies with this requirement each year.”