This article will guide you on how to create a citizen survey about public spending priorities. If you're looking for a simple way to get started, Specific can help you build and launch a conversational survey in seconds—just generate your survey and let our AI handle the rest.
Steps to create a survey for citizens about public spending priorities
If you want to save time, just generate a survey with Specific right now and skip the manual work. The AI survey builder makes this process incredibly easy:
Tell what survey you want.
Done.
Honestly, you don’t even need to read further. With Specific’s AI-powered generator (create any survey), you don’t have to worry about question logic, follow-ups, or missing key insights. The AI crafts expert-level surveys and even asks each respondent additional, personalized followup questions to get beneath the surface and gather high-quality feedback automatically.
Why citizen surveys on public spending priorities matter
If you’re not running citizen recognition or feedback surveys about public spending, you’re missing out on benefits that extend far beyond compliance or checkbox exercises. Here’s the reality:
Align budgets with real needs: Studies consistently show that involving citizens in budget decisions leads to better alignment of resources. In Greece, research revealed that citizen preferences directly shaped health spending priorities—a tangible impact on how funds get allocated. Ignoring this input is a huge missed opportunity. [1]
Boost trust and engagement: When citizens see their voice reflected in budgets, they’re more likely to trust local governments and engage constructively with community initiatives. Research links detailed citizen participation to improved opinions of government actions and increased trust in politicians. [3]
Unlock better outcomes: Participatory budgeting isn’t just feel-good policy—it delivers measurable results. In Brazil, towns embracing these processes collected 39% more local taxes than similar towns that didn’t involve citizens. [2]
If you’re not asking for citizen input, you’re losing out on improved trust, higher civic engagement, and smarter money management. Specific makes getting this feedback seamless, so you can turn missed opportunities into real impact with every survey.
What makes a good survey on public spending priorities?
Crafting an effective citizen survey about public spending priorities is all about clarity, fairness, and engagement. Here’s what actually works:
Clear, unbiased questions—Vague or leading prompts confuse people or sway responses, so we focus on precision and neutrality.
Conversational tone—If the survey feels like an interrogation, responses will be limited or guarded. By making it conversational, people answer more honestly and at greater length.
Logical flow and personalization—A survey that adapts and follows up when needed gets richer, more actionable feedback versus a rigid, bland list of questions.
Bad practices | Good practices |
---|---|
Overly broad questions | Specific, focused prompts |
In the end, a good survey is measured by the quantity and quality of responses. You want high participation, but also deep, insightful answers you can actually use to shape public spending decisions. That’s why we focus on both—volume and depth go hand-in-hand with conversational surveys.
Question types—with examples—for a citizen survey about public spending priorities
Great citizen surveys rely on a mix of question types to capture both structured and nuanced feedback. Here’s how you can approach it:
Open-ended questions are invaluable when you want to uncover ideas, frustrations, or specific needs that structured responses can’t reveal. Use them when exploring priorities, challenges, or suggestions. For example:
What’s your top priority for public spending in your community, and why?
Is there a local service or project you think deserves more funding? Please explain.
Single-select multiple-choice questions excel when you want to get comparable, quantitative data—ideal for ranking priorities or measuring awareness.
Which area should receive the highest share of local government funding?
Healthcare
Education
Infrastructure
Social services
NPS (Net Promoter Score) question is the gold standard for measuring advocacy or satisfaction. It’s particularly useful if you want to benchmark how citizens feel about current budget allocation. You can instantly create an NPS survey for this audience and topic with this tool.
On a scale from 0 to 10, how likely are you to recommend the way our local government allocates public funds to a friend or neighbor?
Followup questions to uncover "the why": Open-ended and NPS questions shine even brighter when paired with smart, contextual followups. If a citizen selects low satisfaction, always ask why—that’s where actionable insight happens. Here’s how we’d approach this:
What’s the main reason behind your rating or response?
Can you give a recent example of how budget decisions affected you or your community?
Effective follow-up turns bland numbers into stories and specifics. Curious for more? Check out our detailed guide to the best questions for citizen surveys about public spending priorities, with even more examples and expert tips on writing your own.
What is a conversational survey?
A conversational survey is not just a list of questions—it’s an experience. Instead of confronting citizens with rigid forms, it engages them in natural, human-like dialogue. The AI survey generator automates the process, but makes it feel like chatting with an expert interviewer. Compared to manual survey creation—where you labor over every word and logic tree—AI-powered survey creation is dramatically faster and less stressful.
Manual Surveys | AI-generated Surveys |
---|---|
Time-consuming setup | Instant creation |
Why use AI for citizen surveys? Leveraging AI means you instantly get a survey built with topical expertise, tailored tone, and dynamic follow-ups. Every respondent’s journey adapts to their answers, making the feedback more genuine and insightful. If you want an AI survey example or want to see how it feels to converse with the survey, just try out our AI survey builder. The experience transforms both how you collect feedback and the quality of the data you get.
Specific offers the best-in-class conversational survey experience—it’s quick for teams to create, natural for people to answer, and powerful for capturing meaningful feedback in the context of public spending. If you want to learn more about building surveys the right way, check out our guide on how to create a citizen survey and make the most of your results.
The power of follow-up questions
Want to know what makes conversational surveys truly magical? Automated, AI-driven followup questions. Read more about our approach to automatic follow-up questions here, but the core idea is this: every answer can trigger a smart, relevant followup in real time, just like a human expert would do. This means:
You never have to chase unclear answers after the survey is over.
Every conversation flows naturally, capturing the “why” and “how,” not just the “what.”
Citizen: “I think healthcare deserves more funding.”
AI follow-up: “Can you share a recent experience where you felt healthcare funding impacted you or someone you know?”
How many followups to ask? In general, two to three followup questions are plenty—enough to reach clarity, but not so many as to annoy. You can always set a cap, or let the survey skip to the next topic once you get the information needed. We’ve designed Specific’s AI to handle this balance for you with a simple setting—just describe what you want and let the AI do the rest.
This makes it a conversational survey: Instead of a cold, linear form, the survey becomes an active exchange. That’s why respondents engage longer, and share richer details.
AI survey response analysis: With so much unstructured, qualitative data, it used to be hard to find themes. Not anymore—AI can instantly analyze, summarize, and even chat about responses. Learn more about our AI survey response analysis and see how easy it is to extract meaning from hundreds of open-ended replies.
These automated followup questions are a game changer for public spending surveys—if you haven’t tried this yet, generate a survey and see the difference for yourself.
See this public spending priorities survey example now
Want to elevate your citizen engagement and uncover the “why” behind public spending opinions? Create your own survey now to experience expert-built, conversational feedback powered by AI—no manual setup required.