East Renfrewshire residents voice strong satisfaction in Citizens' Panel survey
The results of 2025 Citizens' Panel survey have been published, revealing that East Renfrewshire residents continue to express high levels of satisfaction with their local area.
Published: 1 July 2025
According to the findings, 84% of respondents said they are satisfied with East Renfrewshire as a place to live, an increase from 82% in 2024 - highlighting the area's strong sense of community, quality services, and overall appeal.
The East Renfrewshire Citizens' Panel is made up of a representative sample of 1,200 residents and continues to provide a means for local people to give their views. The latest report sets out findings from the most recent Citizens' Panel survey, conducted in early 2025.
The survey sought Panel members' views on our services, planning and housing, supporting carers, safe/supportive communities, keeping active, wellbeing, getting involved in your community and contacting us, with 59.4% of members engaging and sharing their views.
62% of respondents are satisfied with our services overall. Education and libraries continue to be the top-related services, followed by theatre and the arts and public parks/open spaces. Residents were less positive about the area's roads and footpaths.
To improve the condition of residential roads and pavements, in our 2019/20 budget, we committed an additional £15m capital investment for roads infrastructure enhancements over the following five years. The improvement programme was then extended for a further five years, after we committed an extra £17.5m of capital investment to upgrade local roads and pavements. In the first six years of this programme, a total of 223 roads and 65 pavements have benefited from investment, with a further 45 roads and 15 pavements to be resurfaced this financial year.
The number of residents who feel a strong sense of community has increased to 60%, with 76% having people in the community they can rely on for help. 63% feel that our services are accessible for them, and 51% agree that services meet their needs.
79% of respondents feel that it's important for them to be able to influence decisions affecting their local area, with 26% feeling able to influence decisions - up from 19% in 2024.
East Renfrewshire Council Leader, Councillor Owen O'Donnell said: 'The Citizens' Panel survey is always invaluable in helping to shape our services and inform key policies. Our Panel is representative of East Renfrewshire's diverse population and is a great opportunity to hear the views of local residents and help us make decisions. It's positive to hear that an overwhelming majority of Panel members have a high satisfaction with East Renfrewshire as a place to live as whole. The overall ranking of Council services has remained largely unchanged over recent surveys, with education, libraries, theatre and the arts, and parks/open spaces consistently been amongst the top-rated services. The Council is absolutely committed in continuing to further invest in education, care, roads, housing and leisure facilities, as the Council remains dedicated to improving the lives of everyone in East Renfrewshire - from our children and young people, to our older and most vulnerable residents.'
Most respondents feel that our employees represent our three Council values to some extent - "ambition", "kindness" and "trust". This was particularly the case for "kindness", with 65% of the view that we represent this value; 60% feel we represent "trust" and 58% "ambition".
Responses to new questions included for this year found that, 1 in 6 provide care for someone, and 58% would know who to contact if they need support. 83% gave a positive rating on staff manner, based on their most recent contact with us and 77% had a positive rating on ease of contacting us.
We're currently preparing a new Local Development Plan and Panel members were asked for their views on a range of issues to be considered. The survey found the top three planning priorities for residents were the protection and enhancement of parks/open spaces, improved public transport routes and new business and employment.
Read the full report and find out more about becoming a Citizens' Panel member.
