Three years ago, my council sent me the Best Value Resident's Survey. Now, because of what I do for a living, I knew that it was very important that I fill it out. I knew that not only would my council be judged on the survey results, but also in effect their response rates.
I filled it out, sealed it up in the return envelope and placed it on table to take out to post (we don't have collections from our houses in the UK). Well, I never sent it back. And since then, my surveys, at least the ones I've been solely responsible for, have had absolutely crap response rates.
Our household wasn't selected for the most recent BV Resident Satisfaction survey - so I haven't been able to make amends on that score. But I'm keenly aware of karmic deficit, so when a well-known British survey company - Ipsos-MORI - phoned me earlier this week to get my views - I didn't even ask how long the survey would be, I didn't ask what it was about or who paid for it, I just agreed to take it.
Well, turns out it was all about being a Londoner - sort of.
- Was I happy with the public transport? (Not bloody likely)
- Was I happy with the Olympics fundraising? (spitting mad)
- How about Ken Livingstone's oil deal with Venezuelan Marxist crypto-dictator Hugo Chavez? (not thrilled)
In fact most of the survey was about how much or how little I associated various initiatives with the Mayor and then how positive I felt about those initiatives. I wish I could remember the wording now - but some of the questions were extremely biased (such that it's hard not to answer positively about Ken) and I could see how the results touted as "London loves Ken".
Other interesting bits of the survey included how I felt about public art (I like it, generally) and whether I thought promoting London as a "world city" would bring in more tourists and businesses. I thought that was pretty stupid. Tourists already know that London is a world city, but I think they come here for the heritage. Businesses already know that London is a world city - and they come here because of that or the financial markets. Or they choose not to come here because the infrastructure is crumbling and the tax rates and cost of living are crippling.
So finally, I finish this 20 minute survey and I say to the young woman on the phone as she's thanking me and hanging up "Whoa, I'm not done yet, can you tell me who commissioned this survey?"
Well, she has to talk to her supervisor about this - but turns out it's Transport for London who paid for this survey. I was very polite - she just reads out the questions - but on the inside I'm fuming.
Yes, a few questions were about transport, but most of this was Ken Livingstone favourable push polling. Why is Transport for London paying for this? Is this a good use of taxpayer and fare payer money?
I just hope that participating in this propaganda survey improves my future response rates.
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On a related note, I attended the selection meeting for London Assembly member candidate for Merton and Wandsworth last night. (Why do we have to share an assembly member with another borough?) I knew two of the candidates - Richard (Dick) Tracey and Matthew Maxwell Scott. But Krystal Miller and Jo-Ann Nadler were new to me. I thought Jo-Ann was very impressive, but because she's been working for the BBC for a lot of her career - including doing election coverage - she couldn't be active in campaigning. I'd love to see her with a little bit more experience. Krystal is a very young new councillor at Merton, and she sort of needs to come on a bit - but she's got a lot of potential.
I went to the meeting with a fairly open mind, but at the same time pretty much knew I was going to vote for Dick or Matthew - solely because they are members of my local constituency association and Matthew also a member at the ward level (and I've no doubt about their competence or dedication, either).
Dick has a long and impressive career as a politician - and clearly had the confidence of the room. I was certain he would be selected. Matthew put on a great performance and has packed a lot of experience into his 30 years, but Dick has form (including tangles with Mr Livingstone) and will make a formidable scrutineer of the London Mayor.
The voting proceeds thusly: you vote for one candidate. If one candidate gets over 50% of the vote, then that's the selection. If not, there's another round of balloting until somebody does get 50%. It wasn't stated whether the candidate with the lowest number of votes would drop out - but I assumed that was the case.
The field was strong enough that I really thought it might go to a couple of ballots. So I cooked up a plan that allowed me to vote strategically for both Matthew and Dick. In the end, my clever plotting came to nought, as Dick won on the first ballot. The right choice.
1 comment:
Oooh, that would've made me so angry about the survey!!
Though if I'd been told that up front, I never would have taken it in the first place (not that anyone was asking me, mind you - I'm just saying they're lucky they didn't!)
I'm usually rather neutral about Ken (neither demon nor saint), but he's such a cream-puff when it comes to TfL, it really riles me up.
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