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Section 4 Techniques and Tools

4.07 Continuous monitoring surveys

Continuous or regular monitoring surveys are based on rolling or regular samples to provide a form of frequent monitoring and more up to date information than that available from infrequent large scale surveys. They may use any of the sampling techniques discussed above. Designed carefully, the provision of more regular information may be of greater practical use and may complement general surveys undertaken on an occasional basis.

Great care needs to be taken in sampling. Clarity of purpose of the regular monitoring survey is important as the common goals of getting both feedback on recent service use and assessing general satisfaction will require different sampling strategies. Given the opportunity of getting more up to date, actionable information through such regular surveys, in most cases, it is likely that the sample should be based on the selection of those with recent experience of the services being examined, rather than including a general sample of all tenants or residents or combining the two. It is important not to mix up sampling ‘events’ such as the use of a service and ‘populations’ such as tenants.

The main drawback of this approach is that it is likely to produce small sample sizes at each cycle and therefore limit the kind of analysis that can be undertaken.

There are also administrative tasks associated with this approach. In order to choose a random sample of all recent service users, it will be important for up to date records including contact details to be kept. This will require particular administrative diligence to ensure the list is accurate and up to date.

Practice point

• Regular surveys are an attractive approach to providing more up to date information from service users. Their strength lies in the ability to ask very specific actionable questions about recent experience for performance management and service delivery purposes. This needs to be balanced with the desire to ask standardised questions to build a larger picture of satisfaction and change over time, which may be better addressed by other means.

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