Results from the 2023 City of Burlington community survey were an overall “good news” story, according to the consultants who conducted the survey.
Council discussed results of the survey during its committee of the whole meeting Feb. 5 with a focus on the changes from survey results of 2021.
From Sept. 25 to Oct. 20 a community survey was available online and those results had “significant” differences compared to the 784 surveys completed by phone.
When asked how they would rate Burlington as a place to live, 79 per cent of phone respondents indicated “excellent” or “very good” compared to only 55 per cent of ratings from the online survey.
Staff noted there were a set of responses to the online survey that were replicated verbatim 133 times out of 572 completed surveys, but Chris Bandak from Deloitte, the firm that conducted the survey, said it’s not uncommon.
“We did not track the IP address, however it was verbatim, and they were oddly-worded responses so, we cannot say with 100 per cent certainty but we feel pretty confident that it was the same individual,” said Michelle Dwyer, manager of engagement and volunteers at the City of Burlington.
To avoid multiple responses from one user in the future, Dwyer suggested making the online survey available to registered users only after Mayor Marianne Meed Ward brought up concerns about one person skewing the data pool.
The survey results indicated residents’ satisfaction rates in relation to council were down eight percentage points from the last survey in 2021. The 2023 survey results indicated 76 per cent of respondents were either very satisfied or somewhat satisfied with council’s decision making and the transparency of local government.
The report pointed out that satisfaction with all levels of government in Canada has been declining over the last year. The level of trust Canadians have in their government to do what is right has declined over the last year to 43 per cent compared to 58 per cent the year prior, according to a study conducted by Ipsos.
“It really struck me as far as the decrease in satisfaction on council’s performance and the increase from number five to number one on the importance and priority matrix about council,” said Ward 4 Councillor Shawna Stolte before she asked what the cost would be about conducting a second satisfaction survey about council alone.
Oanh Kasperski, director of corporate communications and engagement, said the city is looking at different ways they can potentially look into some of the responses in the survey, including a community panel.
“That will allow us to dig into some of these conversations a little bit more in a way that’s cost efficient. There are also activities through the year, like Food for Feedback that allows us to ask these questions and probe a little deeper,” Kasperski said.
The Burlington community survey results can be found here.
