Business confidence has surged to the highest it has been in 10 years according to the latest ANZ business outlook survey.
We’re still in a recession with unemployment rising, so we’re at a low ebb in the economy. But as inflation indicators have eased, general business sentiment has escalated to a net 51 per cent optimism. Firms’ expectations for their own business has lifted to 37 per cent optimism, the highest in seven years.
Crystal Beavis
If the optimism holds and translates into business decisions to invest more, to hold onto staff or even hire more, then that’s good news for the wider community, and may eventually see consumer confidence levels rise as well.
Thriving local economies are welcomed by councils who work towards being an attractive place to do business precisely because it’s good for the wider community.
Councils also measure sentiment on an annual basis, but right now they make for depressing reading with many satisfaction indicators on a declining trend.
Waikato District Council Residents’ Perception Survey
Satisfaction with core service deliverables has dropped to 48 per cent for Waikato District Council and only 40 per cent of respondents are satisfied with council’s performance overall. It’s clear that a low score for value for money received for rates (31 per cent) is a strong influence on how residents feel about the council overall.
Residents and ratepayers are consumers of council services so, intuitively, these falling scores may be affected by low levels of consumer trust and confidence in general. Check the ANZ-Roy Morgan Consumer Confidence measure, for example.
However, satisfaction with core services and value for money is something the council must address.
Core services like the reliability of the water supply and kerbside rubbish and recycling collections still score satisfaction rates above 80 per cent and local parks and libraries score above 70 per cent.
The big kicker is that satisfaction with roads and road maintenance has dropped well below 30 per cent. This may reflect several factors, including the $18 million damage to our roads by Cyclone Gabrielle last year and the huge resource this sucked out of the system, and the ongoing poor weather which has accelerated road surface deterioration and hampered repairs for the past year or more. So NZTA’s proposal to cut its share of funding for emergency road repairs moving forward is challenging to say the least.
Despite remaining high, a falling score for our libraries is troubling since they have worked to improve services – especially online. We also have agreements offering access to other council libraries, including Hamilton City libraries, and the council hub in Tamahere, for example, offers a pick-up service. Hearing and understanding ratepayer views will be critical to meeting needs.
Scores for ease of enquiry (67 per cent) and for council staff understanding your request (64 per cent) are positive but these, too, have dropped by eight to 11 percentage points over the past two years and so the council is working on upgrading our customer enquiry and response systems to better meet expectations.
On a positive note, more than 70 per cent of Waikato district residents and ratepayers continue to be satisfied with the overall quality of life in the district – so community wellbeing remains strong.
See: Residents Perception Survey presentation
See: Waikato DC Dashboard
