All-in-one survey failed to capture views of working families (Twickenham & Richmond Liberal Democrats)

All-in-one survey failed to capture views of working families

April 17, 2011 1:57 PM

churchill • [Apr 15]: THE Council's much-lauded All-in-One public consultation has failed to reach out to Richmond's working families and massively over-represents the views of the over-55s. Whilst 44% of Richmond's residents are aged 35 or younger, this age group only makes up 12% of the survey respondents. The over 55s are heavily over-represented within the sample.

In response to questioning from Liberal Democrat Councillor Jennifer Churchill at the Finance and Performance scrutiny meeting on 6^th April, Cllr Fleming stated that there were no plans to use weighting to correct the skew in the responses.

Cllr Churchill said: "The responses from the survey in their raw form, with no effort made to offer greater weight to the smaller number of responses from younger people, are an extremely poor reflection of the priorities of Richmond's residents. Young working families are likely to be concerned about education, children's services and the cost of housing. None of these issues make it into the top five priorities of respondents. In fact, support for children and families comes second to bottom. This kind of anomaly makes a nonsense of the results, and we should be very hesitant indeed to base any funding decisions upon them. The Council have suggested that they will 'reach out' to under-represented groups later on in the All-in-One process. Yet what they are suggesting in terms of 'village planning events' will alienate exactly the same groups as the survey. Ad hoc additions to this work, such as seeking the views of Richmond's Youth Parliament, whilst welcome, is hardly going to be sufficient."

• All in One update - Topline results and next steps [Council report Apr 06]

• All in One update - Topline results and next steps [Council report part 2 Apr 06]