A MASSIVE public consultation exercise will kick off next month allowing people to have their say about services they receive from Redditch Council.

The council will send 4,000 survey forms to random addresses across the town to gauge how satisfied people are with housing, refuse collection and leisure services, among other things.

The exercise is part of a Government "Best Value" drive to modernise local authorities by concentrating on efficiency, economy and effectiveness.

Council research and policy officer Alex Urka said: "Under Best Value, councils will be judged by what they do and their delivery of real improvements in the services provided to local people and businesses.

"Consultation is key to providing services shaped not for the convenience of the organisation delivering them, but for the people receiving them."

The information gathered from the survey will be used to compare the council with other authorities and used by external auditors to check the council is delivering Best Value.

If the council is not up to scratch, auditors and inspectors will pinpoint areas of improvement and the council will draw up an action plan.

In order for the exercise to be worthwhile, the council needs at least 1,100 responses from the initial 4,000 surveys.

But councillors at a performance review sub-committee meeting last week doubted whether the council would receive that many replies.

Labour councillor Ken Somner said: "There are a lot of questions in this survey and nine out of 10 people will not complete the forms.

"The questions are not user-friendly and the average return on surveys is about 12 per cent."

Conservative councillor Kieth Boyd-Carpenter said: "It's not very democratic because about 10 per cent of 4,000 people will determine what 70,000 people in Redditch will get."