Report written April 2014
Annual Survey of Londoners 2014
Results for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
Catriona Geraghty
Consultation and Research Officer
Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea
020 7361 3394
Contents
Contents
Summary...... 3
Content and methodology...... 5
Areas of Personal Concern...... 7
Comparison over time...... 8
London comparison...... 9
Significant demographic and area differences...... 11
Image of the Council...... 12
Comparison over time...... 13
London comparison...... 16
Significant demographic and area differences...... 17
Perceptions of Services...... 19
Comparison over time...... 20
London comparison...... 26
Views of service users...... 32
Significant demographic and area differences...... 36
Community Safety...... 38
Feeling safe...... 38
Dealing with antisocial behaviour and crime and Safer Neighbourhood Team...... 39
Significant demographic and area differences...... 41
Engagement and General Satisfaction with the Council...... 43
Engagement...... 43
Satisfaction...... 44
Advocacy...... 45
Appendix One –Tables...... 46
Areas of personal concern...... 46
Image of Council...... 48
Service ratings...... 50
Council’s additional questions...... 54
Appendix 2 – Demographic differences...... 58
Areas of personal concern...... 58
Image of the Council...... 62
Perceptions of services...... 66
Community safety...... 72
Engagement and general satisfaction...... 79
Table of figures
Figure 1- Top five concerns – time comparison
Figure 2 – Areas of personal concern – significant differences from 2013
Figure 3 – Areas of personal concern – significantly less concern than London
Figure 4 – Areas of personal concern – significantly more concern than London
Figure 5 – How the Council is running things – time comparison
Figure 6 – Involving and informing residents – time comparison
Figure 7 – Customer service – time comparison
Figure 8 – Image of Council – London comparison
Figure 9 – Street environment and recycling – time comparison
Figure 10 – Public transport and parking – time comparison
Figure 11 – Leisure activities, parks and open spaces – time comparison
Figure 12 – Social services, health and policing – time comparison
Figure 13 – Council tax, housing and housing benefit – time comparison
Figure 14 – Education – time comparison
Figure 15 – Street environment and recycling – London comparison
Figure 16 – Public transport and parking services – London comparison
Figure 17 – Leisure activities, parks and open spaces – London comparison
Figure 18 – Social services, health and policing – London comparison
Figure 19 – Council tax, housing and housing benefit – London comparison
Figure 20 – Education – London comparison
Figure 21 – Service users’ ratings compared to overall ratings
Figure 22 – Service users’ ratings – time comparison
Figure 23 – service users’ ratings – London comparison
Figure 24 – Feelings of safety – time comparison
Figure 25 – The police and local council are dealing with ASB and crime issues that matter in local area
Figure 26 – Issues for Safer Neighbourhood Team
Figure 27 – Community engagement – time comparison
Figure 28 – Overall satisfaction – time comparison
Figure 29 – Advocacy question – time comparison
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Methodology
Summary
This report presents the results for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea from the 2014 Annual Survey of Londoners (ASL). This is the eighth year that the Royal Borough has taken part in the ASL. The report draws comparisons with the previous year’s results and the London wide results, and highlights the key differences in responses by demographic group.
Areas of concern
The top three areas of personal concern for Kensington and Chelsea residents were: lack of affordable housing (30 per cent), traffic congestion (28 per cent) and crime (24 per cent). For the first time since the Council began its participation in the Annual Survey of Londoners eight years ago, crime was not the top area of personal concern for Kensington and Chelsea residents. Concern about crime continues to significantly decrease year on year and is down six per cent on the 2013 result. There were also significant decreases in concern about lack of jobs (-8 per cent), level of council tax (-5 per cent), quality of health services (-4 per cent) and public transport (-3 per cent). No issues saw a significant increase in concern since 2013.
Concern about crime continues to be significantly less amongst Kensington and Chelsea residents compared to the London wide average (-12 per cent). There is also significantly less concern about lack of jobs (-12 per cent), not enough being done for elderly people (-6 per cent), quality of health services (-5 per cent) and litter/dirt on the streets (-5 per cent). Concern was significantly higher amongst Kensington and Chelsea residents about traffic congestion (+9 per cent), level of pollution (+7 per cent), lack of affordable housing (+7 per cent) and number of homeless people (+5 per cent) compared to London wide.
Image of the Council
The Council continues to perform well in terms of the image of the Council significantly outperforming London in seven of the 12 image dimensions. The Council outperforms London most significantly in terms of doing a good job, being efficient and well run and providing good value for money for the council tax paid (each +12 per cent). However, the Council again performed significantly worse than London (-5 per cent) in terms of doing a better job than one year ago as they did in 2013.
Compared to the 2013 results, the Council performed significantly better in terms of keeping residents informed about what they are doing (+ five per cent) and being difficult to get through to on the phone (-5 per cent) (as this is a negative statement the less agreement with it the more positive the result). Despite the result for doing a better job than one year ago being significantly less than the London result, it did see a significant improvement on the 2013 result (+5 per cent) following two years of significantly declining scores.
Perceptions of services
The Council continues to outperform London in a number of key services including repair of roads and pavements (+26 per cent), street cleaning (+24 per cent), policing (+17 per cent) and street lighting (+13 per cent).
As in previous years, the Council under performs in terms of nursery (-13 per cent), primary (-14 per cent) and secondary education (-17 per cent). Additionally this year the Council underperformed compared to London in terms of leisure and sports facilities (-12 per cent), recycling facilities (-6 per cent) and housing benefit service (-4 per cent).
The rating for leisure and sports facilities was also a significant decrease on the previous year’s result (-7 per cent), as was collection of council tax (-6 per cent) and social services for adults (-5 per cent). The service rating for public transport was the only one to see a significant increase since 2013 (+4 per cent) making it the top rated service by Kensington and Chelsea residents.
Community Safety
The Council’s community safety results were generally positive with the large majority of residents continuing to feel safe outside during the day (96 per cent) and outside after dark (80 per cent). Both results were consistent with 2013 as was the result for residents agreeing that the police and local council are dealing with the antisocial behavior and crime issues that matter in the local area (68 per cent).
There continues to be a declining percentage (25 per cent) of residents who know how to contact their local Safer Neighbourhood Team. The key issues residents felt their local Safer Neighbourhood Team should be addressing were burglary, alcohol related antisocial behavior and youth antisocial behavior. Robbery/mugging dropped out of the top three concerns seeing a significant decrease in concern since 2013 (-4 per cent). .
Engagement and general satisfaction
The engagement results for influencing decisions affecting their local area (46 per cent) and their local area being one where people from different backgrounds get on well together (87 per cent) remained consistent with previous years’ results.
Satisfaction with the way the Council is running things (83 per cent) remains consistently high and is again significantly higher in Kensington and Chelsea compared to the London wide result (59 per cent). Satisfaction with Kensington and Chelsea as a place to live also remains very high (93 per cent) and is consistent with the 2013 results.
The majority of residents would speak positively about the Council (66 per cent), half would do so if they were asked about it (50 per cent) and a further 16 per cent would do so without being asked about it. This result is consistent with the 2013 result when the question was asked for the first time. Content and methodology
The market research company TNS-BMRB conducts an Annual Survey of Londoners (ASL). It offers all London boroughs the opportunity to commission the same survey within their area, and provides a benchmark with a London average. The Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea has taken part every year since 2007, so we now have eight years of time series and benchmarked data on residents’ views of the Council.
The survey covers residents’:
· Areas of personal concern;
· Perceptions of the Council; and
· Views on service delivery
As well as these core questions, the Council also commissions a series of additional questions seeking residents’ views on community safety, engagement and general satisfaction with the Council. These questions cannot be benchmarked against a London wide view. However, the question relating to satisfaction with the way the Council is running things was asked as part of the core questionnaire this year and therefore has a London comparison for the first time.
Fieldwork for the Royal Borough of Kensington and Chelsea’s survey took place between 10th February and 9th March 2014. 1012 face-to-face CAPI[1] interviews were conducted. Quotas were set on gender, age, housing tenure, and ethnicity and working status of women[2]. Responses were weighted at the analysis stage to ensure that the sample was representative of the population. Table 1 shows the sample profile.
Table 1 – Interviews achieved by quota
Quota category / Set % / ACH No. / Achieved %18-34 years / 37% / 357 / 35%
35-59 years / 42% / 436 / 43%
60+ years / 21% / 219 / 22%
Men / 49% / 493 / 49%
Women / 51% / 519 / 51%
Women working full time / 39% / 169 / 33%
Council tenants / 9% / 110 / 11%
Owner Occupier/Other / 91% / 900 / 89%
White / 72% / 743 / 73%
Non-White / 28% / 269 / 27%
Results have also been analysed geographically, by grouping wards as follows:
· Central - Queen’s Gate, Earl’s Court, Courtfield, Holland, Campden, Abingdon
· South – Brompton, Redcliffe, Stanley, Hans Town, Cremorne, Royal Hospital
· North – Golborne, St Charles, Notting Barns, Colville, Norland, Penbridge
Within year differences between demographic groups and between the Council and London wide results were tested for significance by TNS-BMRB. Differences to the previous year’s results for the Council were tested for statistical significance using an online tool hosted by Surveystar.[3]
‘Statistical significance’ indicates that we can be almost certain (95 per cent confident) that an observed difference between years/groups has not occurred by random chance. It is affected by a range of factors, but mainly by the sample size. The smaller the sample sizes, the larger the difference between samples needs to be in order to be ‘statistically significant’. Generally speaking, for sample sizes of approximately 1,000, a difference greater than three per cent will be ‘statistically significant’.
Please note: the differences in scores have been calculated using absolute figures rather than percentages, so in some cases the difference will be one per cent different to the shift you would get from subtracting the percentage scores from each other.
Tables showing time series data for all questions can be found in appendix one, while a breakdown of all the statistically significant differences between demographic groups can be found in appendix two. Full data tables are available on request.
For information on the results please contact:
Catriona Geraghty
Consultation and Research Officer
020 7361 3394
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Results
Areas of Personal Concern
Significant differences between the 2013 and 2014 results for Kensington and Chelsea:
More concern than last year:
None
Less concern than last year:
Lack of jobs -8
Crime -6
Level of council tax -5
Not enough being done for elderly people -5
Quality of health service -4
Public transport -3
Significant differences between the results for London overall and for Kensington and Chelsea:
More concern than London
Traffic congestion +9
Level of pollution +7
Lack of affordable housing +7
Number of homeless people +5
Less concern than London
Crime -12
Lack of jobs -12
Not enough being done for elderly people -6
Quality of health service -5
Litter/dirt on the streets -4
Comparison over time
(Figure 1)