should the results of a Survey carried out by Council be placed in public records.

Question

The council recently conducted a survey among residents to identify areas where additional attention and resources may be required. The results were subsequently compiled and condensed into a report by a small group of councillors, which was then presented to the full Council. During this presentation, it was noted that the group had filtered out comments deemed unhelpful or directed at individual councillors. However, it was also observed that any points raised by fewer than three residents were excluded from the final report. Given that only approximately 6% of the 1,800 distributed survey forms were returned, I question whether this threshold for inclusion is appropriate.

My question is this: Should the full council have access to the complete survey results rather than just the condensed version? Additionally, if any comments in the survey contain threats against councillors, should these be reported to the police and the councillor in question be informed? While I am not aware of any such threats, it remains a possibility. Finally, is the survey considered a public record, and should it be made fully available upon request, or is it acceptable to provide only the condensed version to the public?

Answer 1

This seems to be increasingly common phenomenon where a small cohort involved simply sit on the data collated and guard it with their lives. I don’t quite know where this idea has come from but its evidently practise that is now been replicated across the country. To counteract this emerging “pressure” I’ve made sure that every survey we conduct we set out the expectation clearly to everyone that the data collected will be publicly available.. I’ve felt I had to redact profanity partly because felt given what we were consulting on in the past. I’ve thankfully not had any threats or similar to contend with via consultation though. That is naturally more complex issue (particularly if the police are involved)   

Comments

Data protection regulations have frightened many local authorities into being very protective of anything that might contain personal data.  The answer is to ensure that everyone completing your questionnaire is made fully aware of the uses to which their data will be put and how long you intend to keep it.  This does mean a much more informed and careful construction of the questionnaire and there's an argument that the required disclaimer for data use might put people off responding.  It's also a bit of a faff to redact everything before disclosing it but there it is.

Answer 2

The full data set should be available under FoI - suitably redacted for personal information.