Thank you to all everyone who completed our online survey this summer, we really appreciate your feedback on our services.

This year, we sent the survey to 412 community groups and received 164 responses – that’s a fantastic return rate of 40%, double that of last year!

Pie chart showing overall satisfaction with Supporting Communities services.

We are really pleased to know that the vast majority of you were satisfied or very satisfied (84%) with the services you received from Supporting Communities. For those who were not satisfied with the services received, we thank you for the honest and constructive criticism you provided. We are always striving to improve wherever we can and will take your comments on board where possible.

“The SC team provide a fantastic and much needed support service to our group. Our Liaison Officer has guided me through a lot of processes which has helped me develop into a key member of my community, Without their help, I would not have developed to the level I’m at today.”

— Survey comment

Key Findings:

84% of groups are satisfied or very satisfied by the overall service provided by SC
91% of respondents were satisfied or very satisfied with the advice and support of their Liaison Officer. Thank you all for the lovely comments you wrote about individuals, we have passed on your praise.
Of those who had Interagency meetings facilitated by SC, 87% say the estate inspection issues were addressed by the meeting.
90% were aware of the help SC provides to groups to identify potential funding. Of those who had used this service, 98% found it useful or very useful. SC has recently appointed a Funding and Social Value Officer to not only continue the existing funding support service but also to help groups identify and report on the “social value” that their work has in their communities in a way that can attract more funding.
About half of the groups surveyed had taken part in training through SC in the past year. Of those almost all (96%) said they were satisfied or very satisfied with the training service.
Digital inclusion continues to be a priority for SC. 81% of respondents reported satisfaction with this service.
87% reported satisfaction with the support the received around setting up and running a social enterprise.
Groups were not as aware of our fact sheets /information service as we would like (for some topics, only about half were aware of their existence.) The survey itself will have drawn attention to the availability of our fact sheets and the comments in this section reflect that. We will plan to promote them more on social media and through our staff. All our current Fact Sheets are available to download from our website and we will be looking to see what additional topics we can cover this year.
The Housing Community Network (HCN) structure continues to be well known and positively regarded. 74% of respondents said they felt they had a meaningful voice with the Housing Eexecutive through the HCN (10% were not members of the HCN)

“As a member of a rural community group, I feel the HCN meetings offer an excellent information outlay to our group, covering a wide range of topics which we are then able to pass on to our association and community as a whole. I think these meetings are vital and I am grateful to our Liaison Officer for getting us involved in it.”

— Survey response

A note on the removal of the Independent Account Examination service:

The survey flagged up that several groups were disappointed that this service has been discontinued. Unfortunately, it had become clear that it was no longer viable for Supporting Communities to carry on providing this service.

However, Supporting Communities provide other resources which may be of assistance to groups looking for help with accounting including a fact sheet on Records and Bookkeeping and various training courses in financial aspects of running a community group including ‘Managing Charity Finances’, ‘Treasurer Training’, and ‘Money Matters’.

Please get in touch if you would like to discuss your training needs.