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Scottish Household Survey Bulletin No.6

4. Local services

Introduction

Here we examine levels of contact with the local council and the use of different local services by geographical location. This section also looks at levels of satisfaction with various services.

Contact with services

The SHS asks about contact with a range of Council services, including Council Tax, street lighting and maintenance and trading standards (all the services covered by the SHS are outlined in Table 16).

Overall, a third (33%) of adults have been in contact with their Council in the last year in relation to any of the services asked about (Table 14).

Relatively few adults report having been in contact with their Council more than once in the last year (9% overall).

There is relatively little difference across the urban and rural areas, although adults in 'accessible rural areas' are the most likely to have been in contact with their Council (35%), while adults in 'remote small towns' are the least likely to have done so (29%).

In terms of the Local Authority grouping, contact with the Council in the past year is lowest in Grampian (with 25% reporting having been in contact) and highest in the Lothians (38%) (Table 15).

The services adults are most likely to have contacted their council about are refuse/bin collection (with 10% of adults saying they have contacted their Council about this service in the last year) and Council Tax (also contacted by 10% of adults) (Tables 16 and 17).

Overall, 73% of those who had contacted the Council about refuse/bin collection were satisfied (i.e. 'very' or 'fairly satisfied') with the way their enquiry was handled. By contrast, only 57% of those who had contacted their Council about Council Tax were satisfied with how their enquiry was dealt with (no table).

Use of services

The SHS also asks about use of a number of different public services. Tables 18 and 19 show that there are substantial differences in the use of these services. For example, overall, 34% of adults had visited a public/open space in the week prior to the interview, while only 3% had visited a museum or art gallery.

Patterns of use of services are broadly similar across the different area types. Adults in urban and 'accessible rural' areas were slightly more likely to have used a sport or leisure centre than those in more 'remote rural' areas.

If the month prior to the interview is taken as the reference, rather than the week prior, the proportion of adults who had used the services increases. For example, the proportion of adults who had visited a public/open space increases from 34% to 50% and the proportion who had visited a museum or art gallery increases from 3% to 10% (no table).

High levels of satisfaction were noted in relation to all the services asked about (no table).

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