Community Satisfaction Survey
Published on 19 July 2024
The community’s rating of Mansfield Shire Council’s performance has been released in the 2024 Community Satisfaction Survey.
The survey is conducted by independent consultants who perform the work on behalf of many councils across Victoria.
Councils across Victoria decreased significantly from 2023 to 2024 across the board. Mansfield Shire Council’s overall performance score of 57 reflects a decline of two points on 2023, however remains significantly higher than the statewide and small rural council averages.
Mayor Cr Steve Rabie said communities across Victoria had really felt the pinch of cost of living issues and that most councils had experienced a significant decrease in their rating in this year’s survey.
The appearance of public areas remains Council’s highest rated area with a score of 80. Council has maintained this rating following a significant improvement in 2021. The next highest rated area was art centres and libraries which increased five points on 2023 to a score of 78, following the increased opening hours and programs introduced at the Mansfield Library during 2023-24. Tourism development and recreational facilities (both scoring 69) also increased on 2023 and rated well above the State-wide and the Small Rural group council averages.
“This is actually a good news story,” said Cr Rabie.
“Our strongest performance areas are our public spaces and our library. The survey results are a credit to the hard work put in by our teams in those areas.”
“There were two areas where we returned negative results – planning and unsealed roads, which have both been a continued focus for this Council.
“Those results were a bit disappointing – considering we have made massive improvements in our performance in those areas. For example, we’ve been approving more planning permits within tighter timeframes and we’ve graded more kilometres of road in the last 12 months than we ever have before.
“The decline in our results in these areas is a result of our significant population growth and the increased expectations of our changing community.
Cr Rabie said undertaking this survey was one way Council listened to the community
“We are consistently asking the community to tell us about their expectations or needs about specific projects or plans, while this survey asked the community about how they perceived our overall performance,” said Cr Rabie.
“We consider the results carefully and the survey results inform much of the work we do for the year ahead. I’m grateful to every resident who took the time to answer the survey.”