Why should I answer your questions?
The Council regularly uses surveys as a tool to find out more about the needs and expectations of people who live and work in Poole. Learning how often people use our services, how satisfied they are, and where they feel improvements should be made can help us to:
- make better decisions, based on the needs of local people
- identify key priorities for improvement with the services we provide
- develop new services
- identify places, or groups of people, in need of more support
- attract funding for new schemes and initiatives that benefit the local community
The answers you give will directly inform the decisions we make, and we will publish the results of each survey on this website.
What about my personal details?
The Stonewall Guidance What's it got to do with you? provides a useful explanation of why we need to collect your personal information.
Essentially, collecting details about your age, gender, ethnicity, lifestyle and where you live allows us to consider if some parts of the population have particular needs, and to respond to those more effectively.
You, personally, will not be identified in any of the analysis or reports we produce. We will simply combine your details with those of everyone else who has responded, and then report (eg) what younger or older people in the Borough, or people with a disability, or people who live in a certain area think.
How will you look after my information?
All the information you give will be treated in the strictest confidence, and will only be used to report on, monitor and develop Council services.
Your responses are held on a secure database, and identified only by a reference number - we do not hold your name or address in the same file or location. Access to the database is restricted to officers working in the research team. Survey forms are also stored securely, and are destroyed once the survey report has been completed and verified.
Your personal details are also protected under the Data Protection Act. 
