Overview
The Public Advocate has created The Public Advocacy Project to engage civic leaders and New York City residents in improving government’s understanding of city service problems. The goal is to develop long-term solutions to service problems. The project, which consists of a Civic Leader Board and a comprehensive Citizen Satisfaction Survey is the first of its kind.

The project will reach civic leaders and residents via focus groups, surveys, and flash-polls. 3,500 residents will participate in a city service satisfaction survey and civic leaders from across the city will use their experience and expertise to help identify possible root causes of problems and help propose corresponding solutions.

The Office of the Public Advocate is working in partnership with the School of Public Affairs at Baruch College, the City University of New York, to identify those services most in need of improvement.

The project advances the Office of the Public Advocate’s mandate to act as the city’s quality assurance monitor over the delivery of public services. The Office will use the information generated from the Project to develop a research and advocacy agenda. Data generated from surveys will also arm civic leaders with information they can use to better advocate for their constituencies.

Why are citizen satisfaction surveys important?
A July 2006 Gotham Gazette article by Gail Robinson explains the importance of surveys.

When the Straphangers Campaign asked riders at 15 of New York’s busiest subway stops what they thought of their stations, the answers from almost 4,000 riders surprised the advocacy group.

Grading the stations on cleanliness, security, announcements, crowding and ease of getting around, the riders gave their top score to the Yankee Stadium/161st Street station in the traditionally underserved Bronx-despite renovation problems and complaints about rats. The 51st Street and Lexington Station came in dead last in the 2000 survey, even though in many respects it looked better than its Bronx counterpart. A possible conclusion: When it comes to rating stations, many riders would prefer vermin to overcrowding.

Citizens often have different criteria for rating services than experts or officials. Health administrators may evaluate a hospital based on the number of prestigious doctors or the amount of cutting edge equipment. Patients, though, tend to look at whether the triage nurse in the emergency room treated them with courtesy and respect. In san Jose, the heart of the high-technology Silicon Valley, city officials expected residents would prefer to get key information on public services via their computers. No, residents said in a survey: They wanted to speak to a “real” person on the phone.

Reprinted from (www.gothamgazette.com)

GothamGazette.com, an on-line publication on NYC policy and politics. For monthly updates on measuring city services from Gotham Gazette, go to http://gothamgazette.com/measuringup/.

(Reproduction of this article does not imply endorsement by Gotham Gazette.)