QLDC CEO Theelen: "Tell us how you really feel."

The Queenstown Lakes District Council has revealed details of their "replacement" community trust and satisfaction survey after initially sending emails to selected ratepayers.

Here's their full media release, quoting CEO Mike Theelen, sent out this afternoon - March 4th.

"Queenstown Lakes District Council (QLDC) will next week open its inaugural annual trust and satisfaction survey to the wider community to participate.

QLDC Chief Executive Mike Theelen says the Community Insights Survey provides residents an opportunity to share how they feel about Council’s leadership, governance, communication, engagement, climate and environment efforts, and facilities.

“As part of QLDC’s commitment to transparency and delivering a high standard of services and facilities for our communities, we’ve worked with an independent research company to develop the survey and ensure its results can be trusted,” he says.

“The survey’s aim is to understand residents’ trust in Council processes and decision making, and their satisfaction with Council facilities and overall performance.”

“Some questions regarding satisfaction with Council will be familiar to community members who’ve previously completed our Quality of Life survey. However, the Community Insights Survey includes more targeted questions — based on an internationally recognised model — specifically aimed at measuring trust in Council in a more useful and actionable manner,” he says.

Whereas the Quality of Life survey looks at the general wellbeing of residents including aspects of life that don’t directly relate to Council, the trust survey will specifically monitor Council performance and provide data and information as to whether its processes and decision making are trusted by residents. Utilising two surveys will ensure both resident wellbeing and Council performance are given the focus they deserve and ensure the results can be used effectively.

The Community Insights Survey is being conducted in two parts. Around 3,000 randomly selected residents last week received invitations by email or post, and all residents aged 18 and over will be able to participate through the Council’s Let’s Talk consultation website from Monday 10 March.

Mr Theelen says this approach helps ensure results accurately reflect community sentiment and that the demographics of participants are reflective of the district’s demographics.

“This will help ensure we can have confidence in the results as representative of the district's population and turn them into meaningful improvements,” he says.

Invited participants were randomly chosen by Key Research using electoral roll data obtained from the Electoral Commission. QLDC has no input into the selection process.

Randomly selecting residents to be invited eliminates potential bias in the responses and provides more accurate data that can reliably be used as a comparison tool for future surveys. This is line with how other councils survey their residents and is considered best practice for gauging community satisfaction, ensuring all demographics are included in the survey process proportionate to their population.  

The Community Insights Survey is being conducted by Key Research on behalf of Queenstown Lakes District Council. Participation is anonymous.

The 2024 Quality of Life survey results will be publicly available at letstalk.qldc.govt.nz on 10 March 2025."