ATS AASMAA, DATA ANALYST AT THE MINISTRY OF FINANCE
The criteria are divided into basic, advanced and exemplary levels, of which the basic level describes the level expected from the local government, the advanced level shows moderately better and the exemplary level means significant added value to the service. For example, the service group “governance” could be related to the residents' satisfaction assessment with the management of the local government, the direction of development and the involvement of the residents. If we look at the relationships between the level of service of "governance" and the corresponding satisfaction, the correlations are:
- with the satisfaction of local government management, 0.71;
- with the satisfaction of the development direction of the local government, 0.68;
- involvement of residents in local government development planning with satisfaction, 0.62;
- involvement of residents in spatial development planning with satisfaction, 0.59.
This means that there is a strong positive correlation between the service level of “governance” and the satisfaction of the population with the management and development direction of the local government. In addition, it is worth mentioning that the fulfillment of the criteria under “governance” is, on average, also more strongly positively related to the satisfaction of the living environment. This means that the higher the level of "governance" service, the higher the satisfaction with the living environment.
We can also look at, for example, culture, mobility, sport and public health and security service groups. The correlation of mobility with public transport, light traffic, road satisfaction is 0.32; 0.43 and 0.31, respectively. This shows that there is a correlation between the level of mobility service and satisfaction with public transport, light traffic and roads.
The correlation between service level and satisfaction in the field of sport is also rather weak, but compliance with the excellent level criteria in the field of sport is moderately correlated with satisfaction, which indicates that more excellent level criteria are met in local governments, the higher satisfaction in the field of sport can be presumed. In the field of culture, the correlation of the service level with the satisfaction of the population is rather low - 0.23. The correlation of the public health and safety service group with the satisfaction of ambient air and noise levels is 0.14 and 0.12, respectively. On this basis, it can be said that the given satisfaction is not sufficient for the overall assessment of the public health and safety service group and more relationships need to be found.
The correlations obtained suggest that the level of service of local governments may not always be directly related to the satisfaction of a particular topic area. Satisfaction with opportunities in the field of culture is probably not one-dimensional - it is probably a complex assessment, influenced by personal experience, the media or some unknown variables, which might be an important for the resident.
The satisfaction survey was conducted in January 2020. As this was the first of such surveys, it is not known how constant the satisfaction of the population is in time and how dependent it may have been on some media or other event at the time of the survey. Currently we can say that there is a strong positive relationship between the criteria chosen to assess the governance of the local government and the satisfaction of the living environment, management and development direction - with a higher level of service, there is also a higher level of satisfaction.
The satisfaction survey can be found here.
*The satisfaction survey was conducted by Statistics Estonia. The analysis and preparation of the article is supported by the European Social Fund of the European Union.
