Place Survey Data 2008
The Place Survey was a national survey undertaken in 2008 which, in many ways, replaced the Best Value Survey of 2006. In 2008 the Government changed its approach to seeing how well local authorities were doing by looking at how where you live can affect how happy you are with the services you receive. The new Government formed in 2010 is looking at new ways for councils to look to the public to find out how well they are performing, and for reviewing local government finance.
In the summer of 2008 district partners joined forces with the county council to manage Dorset's first Communities and Local Government Website .
We used an independent research company, BMG, to conduct the survey.
The questionnaire went out by means of anonymous and random selection in September and October 2008. A total of 9,310 people took part and filled the questionnaire in - a fantastic response rate which provided local communities and all those in the Dorset Strategic Partnership with valuable benchmarking data for the future.
Place Survey highlight report (PDF, 118kb) (opens in a new window) 
results report by BMG research. (PDF, 2Mb) (opens in a new window)
The results have been analysed nationally by the Audit Commission and were made available to all authorities in England to give us a real insight into how Dorset is seen as a place to live compared to other areas.
So, what does it tell us? The Place Survey asked questions about how people feel about the place in which they live, and the anonymous answers to these questions tells a story about how our services are received. It also tells us more about the people with whom we may need to work to tackle any issues and will help us develop and improve what we do.
