Ombudsman forces release of QLDC trust survey - council claims 17% trust rating

A Crux complaint to the Chief Ombudsman has forced the release of a March 2025 survey that measures the level of community trust and confidence in the QLDC.

The survey only received 445 responses of which only 405 were "selected for reporting." QLDC does not explain the criteria for rejecting 40 responses.

A 2024 Crux survey that replicated the Council's previous trust and confidence survey (dropped in 2024 following a 15% 2023 score) received 1,547 responses and showed a trust and satisfaction level down to 4%.

Results from the Crux 2024 survey - an exact copy of QLDC's 2023 survey. We had 1,547 responses.

In amongst lots of QLDC 2025 questions about climate change, biodiversity and public toilets in the council's "replacement" trust survey the key questions about trust and confidence included the following scores for Satisfied/Very Satisfied.

How satisfied are you with the leadership of the Mayor and Councillors in the past year?    17%

Council makes decisions that are in the best interest of the district. 17%

Council creates long term solutions and improvements that work well for me. 16%

CEO Mike Theelen is away at the moment but acting CEO Dave Wallace made the following statements to Crux.

“Where we can take some heart is high satisfaction with community facilities. It’s great to see a result like 85% satisfaction with our trails, walkways and cycle ways. Libraries and parks also score highly.”

“We also see some low scores in terms trust and engagement. We have been working hard to build on these perceptions and have built our engagement through multiple forums, district-wide, including moving our workshops into the public domain. We will continue to work to understand how we can shift this sentiment.”

“In general, local government is a challenging environment with reform, change and fiscal challenges, themes that weave throughout the country, but we also know there have been difficult local decisions. I can say we have a dedicated staff, a highly engaged Council, and a huge amount of care to deliver for our communities.”

"This information is helping inform Council decision making and direction."

Here's the full QLDC survey results. NOTE: Crux has requested the raw survey data from QLDC under Official Information legislation - with a response due on May 26th. QLDC failed to meet this deadline and Crux has a formal complaint lodged with the Ombudsman. QLDC told Crux the results would be released in April, then mid-May - then at a workshop on June 17th. Today's release is a result of our ongoing complaints to the Ombudsman.