Sandwell Council: Residents’ Survey
Sandwell Council commissioned M·E·L Research to deliver a borough-wide residents’ survey to understand how local people experienced the area and how they viewed the Council and key services. The work sat within an ongoing need to track public perceptions over time, identify areas of strength and improvement, and provide an evidence base that could be used by senior leaders and service teams to plan communications and prioritise action. The presentation outputs showed that results were designed to support both year-on-year comparison and external benchmarking, using Local Government Association (LGA) benchmark data where available.
The business need was twofold:
- Capture robust feedback from a representative cross-section of residents across the borough.
- Provide clear, decision-ready headline measures on satisfaction with the local area, community cohesion, perceived safety, views of the Council (including trust and perceived responsiveness), communications, and a small set of topical issues such as health access and climate-related behaviours.
A key practical consideration was geographic reporting. While the survey achieved a strong overall sample, the materials noted that sample sizes were not intended for robust ward-level reporting; instead, wards were grouped into towns to enable more reliable sub-area comparisons.
Approach
M·E·L Research designed and delivered a structured, quantitative residents’ survey using an in-person, interviewer-administered approach to maximise inclusivity and coverage across communities. Interviews were conducted face to face with residents across all wards, using a random location sampling approach and a controlled quota strategy. Data were then weighted to be fully representative of the borough’s population profile, and confidence intervals were calculated at borough level to support robust interpretation.
Methodology (broken down):
- Face-to-face survey (tablet-administered)
- Audience: Sandwell residents (general population).
- Sample size: 1,129 completed interviews.
- Quotas: Age and gender quotas to match the population.
- Weighting: Data weighted to be fully representative.
- Statistical assurance: Borough-level maximum confidence interval of +/-2.95 at the 95% confidence level.
- Geographic reporting approach: Wards grouped into towns for analysis and comparison, reflecting limitations on ward-level robustness.
- Benchmarking and trend comparison
Results were compared against LGA benchmark figures where possible, drawing on an LGA polling dataset (telephone-based) to contextualise performance on council satisfaction and service measures. The presentation also incorporated year-on-year comparisons (e.g., highlighting statistically significant differences vs the previous year).
In addition to closed measures, the questionnaire included open-ended prompts to capture residents’ views in their own words (for example, what residents were proud of locally and what would make the area more child-friendly). These verbatim-style responses were summarised thematically within the output.
Outputs
M·E·L Research produced a PowerPoint “key messages” presentation designed for quick consumption by decision-makers and stakeholders. The deck set out the research method, statistical parameters, and reporting structure, before presenting findings across key themes including: local area satisfaction, belonging and cohesion, safety perceptions, council satisfaction and trust, perceptions of whether the Council acted on residents’ concerns, service satisfaction, contact experiences, communication channels, health access, and willingness to take climate-related actions.
Analysis and interpretation included:
- Weighting and representativeness controls to ensure the dataset reflected the population profile.
- Confidence and statistical significance framing, with the deck explicitly flagging where year-on-year differences were significant.
- Benchmark comparisons against LGA figures on relevant measures to aid interpretation and provide an external reference point.
- Subgroup reporting that highlighted differences by location (town groupings) and resident characteristics where meaningful (e.g., variations by age, gender, disability status, and council contact).
- Open-text thematic summarisation, using resident comments to illustrate the breadth of suggestions on child-friendliness and community pride.
- The presentation format supported practical use: it combined headline charts/tables, annotated “key message” statements, and clear notes on base sizes and interpretation cautions (e.g., low base guidance and the ward/town reporting rationale).
How the outputs were used:
The deck was structured to enable leadership teams and service areas to: (1) understand borough-wide sentiment; (2) compare performance against sector benchmarks; (3) identify where perceptions differed across the borough and by resident profile; and (4) pinpoint priority topics for service improvement and communications planning, supported by both quantitative measures and resident-led suggestions.
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