You also told us we are providing opportunities for you to be more active and involved in our community.

When it comes to feeling safe, 96 per cent of residents feel safe walking in Glen Eira during the day, but this drops to 64 per cent for those walking at night.

These insights are just a small part of what you told us through the Local Government Community Satisfaction Survey, held each year and providing detailed information about Glen Eira and how we compare to other councils in Victoria.

In recent years, we have included six questions that relate directly to our Council priorities, including quality of life, opportunities to be active and involved, safety and climate action.

Glen Eira continues to perform better, or just as well, on average, on all service areas when compared to the state-wide results. For overall performance, you gave us a 65 per cent approval rating compared to 62 per cent for the metropolitan area and 56 per cent for the state.

The areas where you think we are performing the best are through our libraries and art centres, recreational facilities and the appearance of our public areas. Again, the Glen Eira results are significantly higher than averages for the state. For those of you who have had contact with us during the year, 77 per cent provide a positive customer service rating of ‘very good’ or ‘good’.

What we can learn and improve

One of the most valuable things about this Community Satisfaction Survey is the level of detail it provides on what we can do better and where we are improving each year.

Overall, Victorians are less satisfied with their councils than in the past, and this includes Glen Eira.

On average you told us we are performing better than other councils in managing for population growth, planning and building permits and town planning, but that we can still do better.

The Survey also ranks services in order of importance to you. For most people, waste management was rated as the most important service we provide, and you rate it fourth highest in terms of satisfaction, which is good news. However knowing where you are less satisfied gives us a reliable guide as to where you want us to focus our efforts.

There’s more

The Community Satisfaction Survey provides another valuable layer of detail, breaking responses down to ward level, and by population types such as age ranges and sex. This means we now know, for example:

• Rosstown and Tucker Ward residents are more satisfied overall with services they receive than residents in Camden Ward;
• those aged 18 to 34 gave the highest scores for how we manage population growth, while the 50 to 64 year age group gave the lowest scores for those services; and
• women feel more committed to changing habits and behaviours that will reduce climate change impacts at 84 per cent, compared to men at 71 per cent.

These insights by age, sex and location tell us where we need to give our greatest effort and who we need to engage with more deeply. Thank you to everyone who completed the Survey. We will keep you informed about what we are doing and changing in response to your views.

You can read the entire Survey Report — as well as a shorter report on six specific questions we ask in Glen Eira — on our website.