Residents' overall satisfaction with Christchurch City Council's performance has dropped by 7 per cent in the past year.
The Covid pandemic and its ongoing effects have put pressure on the council’s budget, Baxendale said.
"We have made a firm commitment to improving our performance over the last two years but, like many organisations, the council’s finances have been significantly impacted by the pandemic.
"An important focus has been on how we can respond financially to the impacts of COVID-19," Baxendale said.
Overall satisfaction with the council is now sitting at 42 per cent - down from last year’s 49 per cent.
"Given the extremely trying circumstances recently, we have done well to maintain core services, but we strongly recognise the need for improvement," Baxendale said.
"Many of the same themes were raised by residents this year and our attention remains firmly focused on delivering the basics - like water, roads and transport - and doing them better.
"They are a core focus of the Long Term Plan, particularly in the first three years. However, we need to be realistic that infrastructure outcomes such as these will take time and significant budget commitments.”
There were also some positives from the survey findings, said Baxendale.
"While the overall satisfaction score has declined slightly, many of our services achieved high levels of satisfaction, especially given the challenges of the pandemic.
"Waste management, parks, and libraries were just some of the services that scored highly.
"Something that’s extremely pleasing to see is that where people are interacting face-to-face with our staff, the feedback has been overwhelmingly positive. For example, the satisfaction score for walk in customer service is sitting at 97 per cent."
Council bosses will now provide responses to the feedback and individual solutions for a path to improvement, Baxendale said.
The feedback is being considered now as part of the final Annual Plan decision-making.
"The survey results and resident comments will help us as we continue to reshape the organisation, using this information to inform our decisions," Baxendale said.
The survey involved point of contact surveys conducted over the course of the past year with 6265 council customers and a general service satisfaction survey, which was completed by 773 people online between January and February.
- Check out the full survey results here.
