THE Times Best Councils To Work For 2007 list is based on the views of employees and the policies and processes of employers. It uses a methdology developed by Best Companies Ltd to ensure that rigorous measures are in place to provide a fair and consistent approach to all councils that participate in the survey. The system was designed exclusively for the British workplace and identifies best practice and ranks councils according to their performance in key indicators of staff satisfaction.

Eligibility: All London boroughs, unitary, metropolitan, county and district authorities may participate in the survey. However, schools, police and fire services are not included in the survey sample.

Free entry: This year’s survey has been sponsored by the Improvement and Development Agency (I&DeA) and Local Government Employers, and participation was free of charge. All participating councils receive an interactive results summary report of key workplace factors and average response profiles, along with a benchmark to facilitate comparisons with other participating councils.

Employee input: The views of 67,167 employees were requested from all participating councils. Surveys were distributed to a randomly selected group of staff. At least 30 per cent of these had to be returned for a council to be eligible. The survey contained 70 questions, measuring equally weighted workplace “factors” that have been identified from extensive research in the UK. This research demonstrates that a person’s experience of their workplace is a result of their perceptions in the following areas: Leadership (the heads and senior managers of a council); My Manager (the local management on a day-to-day basis); Personal Growth (opportunities to use skills and advance); Wellbeing (balancing work/life issues); My Team (immediate colleagues); Giving Something Back (giving back to society and to the community); My Council (the council and the way it treats staff); and Fair Deal (pay and benefits).

Council input: A detailed survey was distributed to all participating local authorities. This sought data on policies (pay, maternity, benefits, healthcare, etc); processes (recognition, promotion, recruitment, communication, etc); and facilities (sports, training, catering, etc).

Scoring: Final council rankings are calculated from factor scores from the responses to the the employee survey.

Ranking table: The league table of the top 20 councils is published opposite on page 4. The staff figures given include full-time, part-time and contract workers.

Statistics: Throughout this supplement, percentage results on individual questions from the survey are reported in tables, articles and council profiles. In all profiles, these represent the percentage of the maximum possible score on each question and are expressed as the “percentage positive score”. Staff completing the employee survey responded to each statement by indicating their level of agreement on a seven-point scale ranging from “strongly disagree” (1) to “strongly agree” (7). These scores were averaged and turned into percentages of the maximum score. For example, if a council gets a 67 per cent positive score on the statement “This is my dream job”, this means that its overall mark is 67 per cent of the score it would have had if all its staff had indicated that they strongly agreed with the statement.

Best Councils To Work For 2008: Applications are invited from councils for next year’s lists. www.bestcompanies.co.uk/bestcouncil

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