Barnet First magazine reader questionnaire

We asked

We asked for your views on the Barnet First magazine, to help us improve the magazine and ensure it includes more of the type of content you want to read.

You said

We received 48 responses to the online questionnaire. The responses included:

• four out of five respondents said they regularly receive Barnet First magazine at home
• more than half of respondents spent five minutes or more reading the magazine with more than a third spending ten minutes or more
• most respondents read and recycle the magazine but almost one in three keep it for future reference
• almost half of respondents cited local community social media as their main source of local news and information with local newspapers, community newsletters and word of mouth all mentioned by around a third of responders
• four out of five respondents would like to get Barnet Council information direct from the magazine and two thirds from an eNewsletter. A third of responders use the council’s website for information and one in five access Barnet’s social media
• almost 40% of respondents said they had accessed a service or attended an event they first learned about in the magazine
• at least 85% of respondents were happy with the content and 73% with the relevance of the content to themselves. Readability and design and layout both achieved 87% satisfaction.

You told us that the subjects of information you would most like to read about in Barnet First are:

• Community news 48%
• Council and democracy: meetings, councillors 38%
• Parks and open spaces: walks and trails etc. 35%
• Community safety: tackling anti-social behaviour etc. 33%
• Development & regeneration: housing, future plans etc. 32%
• Libraries services and events 31%
• Leisure: sports facilities, activities etc. 29%
• Consultations 27%
• Council Tax and budgets 26%
• What’s on: local venues, community events etc. 27%

We did

We aim to distribute Barnet First to every home in Barnet and we are working closely with our distributors to ensure as few homes as possible are missed. All missed addresses can be reported to barnet.first@barnet.gov.uk

We are strengthening the link between Barnet First magazine and Barnet First eNewsletter to ensure as many residents as possible are aware of and have access to the now weekly eNewsletter.

Going forward we will aim to include more articles on the subjects that you have told us you are interested in reading about.

We will also be running some focus groups in the autumn to find out more about your views on Barnet First magazine. We will add more information here when more details are available.