Developing a facilities management questionnaire in a local government setting

Community facilities are at the frontline of service provision for local government, enacting strategy and objectives on a day-to-day basis and forming the cornerstone of performance assessment. The performance of facilities, as judged by their users, is a contested area of governance, with theories on assessment being influenced by economic, social, environmental and business-as-usual advocates. Facility managers, who see users as the source of their reward as well as their day-to-day problems, consider asking users for their opinion as being equally a benefit and a risk. However, measuring customer satisfaction is increasingly emerging as a measure of good performance and facility managers have to find some credible way of gauging this. This research paper takes a broadly consultative approach to survey development and finds that, regardless of the best planning and design, facility managers will be judged based on the limited experiences of their users and evaluators and this is key to successfully embedding new strategy in operations.