Your Say survey results: Your services

We had almost 11,000 replies via post, email and the internet when we asked our readers for their thoughts on the region, its services and life in general.

The idea was to create a snapshot of the hopes, priorities and concerns of those taking part.

The results will be revealed all this week – and we will also be gauging the response to the findings from those who are in charge of making the decisions that affect our lives.

Today we reveal the results of the survey on Your Services. Tomorrow, we will publish the poll findings on Your Towns, on Wednesday Your Transport, Thursday Your Safety and finally Friday Your Well-being.

See more survey results here

Subjects covered in today's survey included bin collections, libraries and community centres, the effects of cuts in funding and politicians.

These are big issues at a time when councils are faced with making savings and the whole structure of local authorities is the subject of ongoing debate.

On the ground, there is no subject hotter at the moment than bins – the debate on whether they should be weekly or fortnightly and the growing requirement to sort our rubbish into piles for recycling.

Councils that have pledged to keep weekly bin collections can today be assured that they are doing the right thing after an overwhelming majority of respondents to the E&S Your Say Survey said they would not be prepared to go fortnightly.

At the same time there was a clear majority who said they would not support the introduction of charges to use tips – something that councils have considered in the past when they find their sites are close to borders and are being used by people from a neighbouring authority.

Council leaders respond to day one of the results

Around 58 per cent of people currently have weekly collections and do not want that to change as opposed to 21.2 per cent who would make the switch and 20.6 per cent who already have them.

It means councils like Wolverhampton , Sandwell and Dudley, who collectively applied for £6 million from a government fund to keep weekly bin collections, have done so with the blessing of their residents.

The findings also suggest that an elected mayor for the Black Country or Staffordshire would be rejected if people were given the option now.

The majority of those taking part in the survey, 57.3 per cent, were against the idea, with more people undecided, 27.1 per cent, than prepared to vote yes, 15.6 per cent.

Meanwhile, almost three quarters of people fear for the future of libraries, community centres and youth clubs as councils look to cope with multi-million pound spending cuts.

But nearly half of people say they have yet to notice a difference in the quality of service they are receiving from their local authority despite hundreds of jobs across the region having already been axed as budgets have been slashed.

The first results from the Express & Star Your Say Survey on Services reveals people are satisfied on the whole with the service they are receiving in return for their council tax.

The results generally make for encouraging reading for councils but also show authority leaders that there is still work to do if they want the majority of people to sing their praises.

Nonetheless as many as half of people have said they have noticed no difference in the quality of service they are provided by councils even though tough decisions have been made on spending.

Just barely over half, 50.4 per cent, say the cuts have affected the quality of service but 49.6 per cent believe there has not been a change.

This raises interesting questions as to whether or not councils were overspending prior to the coalition government's major changes to council grant funding.

It implies that many of the cuts currently made have been found in back office roles that have had no impact whatsoever on the public.

The figures also serve as a reminder to politicians that there are vast numbers of people that have no knowledge of the work they are doing, with a significant proportion having never contacted their local councillor and many who are not able even to name their local MP.

Councils have been forced to draw up controversial budgets since 2010 when the coalition government began to reduce the funding it was prepared to provide in order to try to reduce Britain's record spending deficit.

Councils have also been hit by two years of council tax freezes.

While they received a grant the equivalent of a two per cent rise to keep council tax bills frozen, they previously had greater freedom to raise rates by a lot more.

From April no rise of more than two per cent will be allowed without resorting to a costly referendum and councils will be given a grant the equivalent of a one per cent rise to freeze council tax again. Some, such as Wolverhampton, Sandwell, Dudley, Staffordshire County Council, Stafford Borough Council and South Staffordshire Council, have already decided on a third year of freezes but others such as Walsall and Cannock Chase are rejecting the grant in favour of an increase.

Across the region, councils are warning that services they are not legally obliged to provide are at risk of either being cut or transferred over to private operators and independent trusts.

Front line services such as libraries are no longer being spared and in Wolverhampton the city council is about to merge four with youth and community centres.

It had originally wanted to close as many as nine but bowed to a public outcry. Fees and charges such as street stall licences and Hackney Carriage taxi fares will also go up.

Dudley Council is looking to put up its parking charges and slash its road maintenance allowance.

Parks and streets will not be maintained as often and garden waste would go uncollected for five months of the year under plans to save £22 million over three years.

The council has already slashed £30m since 2010, seeing 487 voluntary redundancies and 74 compulsory redundancies at the local authority.

The proposals in Dudley include introducing wheelie bins and shortening the collection period for garden waste. Streets would not be cleaned as regularly and residents would be encouraged to hold their own litter picks.

In Walsall a trust or social enterprise is being looked at to run leisure centres and 90 jobs will go over 12 months.

Walsall Council has to make £13m cuts and plans to shut toilets to save on cleaning and maintenance costs, in Pelsall, Rushall, Willenhall, Aldridge, Brownhills and Blakenall Heath.

Facilities at Rushall and Brownhills have been temporarily closed since early October and bosses say there were no complaints.

The council's leader Mike Bird today said people were right to be concerned for the future of services.

He said: "I would be one of the 58 per cent of people who said in the survey they were concerned for the long term future of the services we offer. We can't afford to keep offering the facilities we've got with the money coming in from council tax.

"Costs of protecting these services are rising.

"So people should be concerned. We've been doing our utmost to not affect front line services but there comes a time when have have to face stark realities and take some very difficult decisions that people will not like."

Councillor Roger Lawrence, leader of Wolverhampton City Council, was among those to receive the Your Say dossier.

He today welcomed the Express & Star's initiative to discover how people in the region feel about important issues affecting their lives.

But, like other council leaders in the region, he was unable to give guarantees for the long term future of front line services such as libraries and community centres.

He said: "We do our own surveys and these figures are broadly in line with ours.

"We want 100 per cent of people to feel they are getting a good service but this is at least encouraging. I'm not surprised by the numbers who say they have not been in touch with their councillor.

"People only tend to get in touch when they have a problem."

In Sandwell, where another £25m of cuts must be found on top of £75m already drawn up, finance chiefs are warning they may have to outsource car parks to the private sector so that they no longer have to fund the cost of maintaining them – a move that could well mean charges increase.

It is also planning to reduce the opening hours of its libraries and rent charges for council housing will rise by nearly 10 per cent.

Staffordshire County Council is saving money by hiving off its school cleaning, maintenance and food services to a joint venture that it has set up with outsourcing giant Capita and more than 500 jobs across the authority will have been lost between 2011 and the end of 2013.

Stafford Council has £333,000 less than last year. In Cannock Chase, council bosses said they would be losing around 20 per cent of their funding over two years.

Cannock councillor George Adamson said the council was now having to look again at its budget, as the cuts have left it £185,000 worse off than anticipated. At a time when public spending is under great pressure and councils are having to consult very widely on their proposals it would be expected that local councillors would be busier than ever.

But a majority of people, 54.8 per cent, have never had any contact with their local councillor.

This may go some way towards explaining the very low turnout at the last local elections in May 2012 where around a third of people bothered to cast their vote.

And it also raises the question of whether metropolitan boroughs really require three councillors for each ward.

Councillor Neville Patten, opposition Conservative leader in Wolverhampton, said: "I don't see why we need three councillors for each ward, particularly when in some cases you can have wards where all three seats are held by the same party.

"If you have a ward where there are two from one party and one from another, then you can still give people the choice with two councillors.

"I interpret this figure of 54.8 per cent as the number of people who have not had any problems and have not felt the need to call their local councillor and it is good if this is the case.

"Councillors will put their contact details on their leaflets and people can contact us by phone or by email if they prefer."

Just over a third of our readers, 36.1 per cent, also admitted that they were not able to name their local MP which should prompt the region's politicians to consider how they can do more to engage with their constituents.

This is despite MPs now having more ways than ever to keep people informed with many running their own websites, Facebook and Twitter accounts.

Gavin Williamson, the Conservative MP for South Staffordshire who was elected in 2010, said: "I think there is a great deal of apathy towards politicians and an element of mistrust left over from the expenses scandal.

"I think what this question on the survey has shown is that as MPs we have to constantly up our game, even though we do work hard to be accessible to people, and that all politicians have to work to rebuild trust even if the problems date back to before we were elected."

Paul Uppal, Conservative MP for Wolverhampton South West, believes that part of the problem for his party lies with candidates not being properly representative of the country.

He wants to see more minority ethnic Tory candidates but rather than resorting to special shortlists, he wants to see more open primaries where local residents get a say in the candidates the parties choose as well as voting for the overall winner on election day.

Adrian Bailey, Labour MP for West Bromwich West and a former deputy leader of Sandwell Council, said: "It's a matter of concern for many MPs. One way to become better known is to do what Nadine Dorries, the Conservative MP for Mid-Bedfordshire did by appearing on I'm a Celebrity Get Me Out of Here.

"But I don't think abandoning your electorate and going off to Australia necessarily makes you a popular MP.

"My electors have no trouble find me when they need me. Another thing to consider is that we are around half way between General Elections and there is always a greater awareness and interest in the run up to and immediately afterwards."

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