2 surveys show most residents satisfied with City of Saskatoon services

The City of Saskatoon says its surveyed residents report high levels of satisfaction with municipal services and their quality of life.

The opinions stem from two public surveys conducted by Forum Research Inc. this past spring and summer.

Director of communications and public engagement at the city, Carla Blumers, said she was pleased with the findings.

“We’re glad to see that even in light of the (COVID-19) pandemic, a healthy majority of those surveyed told us they continue to enjoy a good quality of life and are satisfied with the services the city provides for the community,” Blumers said in a statement Thursday.

In the citizen satisfaction and performance survey, 88 per cent of telephone and 87 per cent of online panel respondents expressed overall satisfaction with the quality of services provided by the city, with half of those surveyed indicating COVID-19 impacted satisfaction.

Roughly three-quarters of respondents indicated the city provided a safe environment to access civic facilities and services as the pandemic allowed.

In the second survey, the city said overall satisfaction remained the same or higher since 2018 for many of the 29 civic services.

Participants noted their highest level of satisfaction with the city’s performance included: reliability of electrical services, fire protection, garbage collection and indoor leisure centres.

Respondents noted they would like to see the city’s existing performance improve in the following areas:

• snow and ice road maintenance;
• major road and freeway maintenance;
• traffic management;
• neighbourhood street maintenance;
• accessibility of infrastructure for people with disabilities; and
• planning for growth and development.

The top three areas that panel respondents indicated they would like to see the city provide more services for included:

• affordable housing;
• road maintenance; and
• snow and ice management.

“After all that we’ve been through in the last few years, it’s encouraging to see that while we know that there are still areas to improve upon, overall, Saskatoon citizens continue to be satisfied with their quality of life, services and the handling of and communications throughout the pandemic,” Clark said in a statement.

“The lessons learned will allow the City of Saskatoon to better meet the expectations of residents now and in the years to come.” 

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Results of the surveys will be presented to the governance and priorities committee at its meeting on Oct. 18.

City officials said the surveys each included a telephone survey, an online panel and a link available to the public on its website. They added the results of the telephone and online panels are representative of the population due to the random selection process.

Both surveys were previously scheduled to be conducted in 2020 but postponed due to the pandemic, according to the release.