Survey of Trust in Australian public services dashboard as at 20 July 2023 – technical note
The survey questionnaire is available at our webpage here.
Section 1: Overall
Graph 1 “Trust in Public Services” (top left) is based on Q18 of the survey:
To the best of your knowledge, how much do you agree or disagree with the following statement. ‘I can trust Australian public services.’
Trust – the proportion of people who selected “Completely Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat Agree”.
Distrust - the proportion of people who selected “Completely Disagree”, “Disagree” or “Somewhat Disagree”.
Graph 2 “Satisfaction with Public Services” (top right) is based on Q24 of the survey, where people answer the following question on up to 3 specific services they have interacted with in the past 12 months:
We now want to hear about your experience with specific services. You access public services because [life event selected at Q9]. Thinking about your interactions with these service/s, how satisfied or dissatisfied are you with each service? (Only a maximum of three services are displayed, even if you accessed more, for the life event allocated at Q12.)
Satisfaction – the proportion of service interactions where “Completely Satisfied”, “Satisfied” or “Somewhat Satisfied” was selected, where each service interaction is weighted as 1 / the total number of services that person answered questions about (up to 3).
Dissatisfaction - the proportion of service interactions where “Completely Dissatisfied”, “Dissatisfied” or “Somewhat Dissatisfied” was selected, where each service interaction is weighted as 1 / the total number of services that person answered questions about (up to 3).
Graph 3 “Trust in Public Services by Services Accessed” (bottom) shows trust based on how people have interacted with services.
Trust ‘in specific services they have used (%)’ is based on Q28 of the survey:
Thinking about your interactions with the below service(s), how much do you agree or disagree with this statement: (These questions are repeated for each service allocated at Q24).
- The service is trustworthy.
It is the proportion of service interactions where “Completely Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” was selected, where each service interaction is weighted as 1 / the total number of services that person answered questions about (up to 3).
Trust ‘In Australian Public services overall (respondents who accessed services)’ shows trust, calculated as the proportion of people who selected “Completely Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” to Q18, filtered by people who answered yes to Q11 below:
Did you access Australian public services for any of these things in the last 12 months?
Trust “In Australian Public services overall (respondents who did not access services)” shows trust calculated as the proportion of people who selected “Completely Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” to Q18, filtered by people who answered no Q11 above.
Section 2: Demographic
Graph 1 “Trust in Public Services by [demographic]” (left) shows trust for demographic groups below, calculated as the proportion of people who selected “Completely Agree”, “Agree” or “Somewhat Agree” to Q18.
- Age range taken from Q3 Please enter your age (years) and sorted into 3 age brackets.
- Genders taken from responses with n=>50 for Q4 What is your gender?
- Regions classified as ‘Metro’ or ‘Regional’ based on postcode data from Q8 Please enter your postcode for your usual place of residence and the ABS Correspondence table of 2017 Postcodes to 2016 Remoteness Area. Metro is any postcode where the majority of the people in that postcode are classified as being in “Major Cities of Australia”. Remote is all other classifications.
Graph 2 “Satisfaction with Public Services by [demographic]” (right) shows satisfaction based on Q24 for demographic groups below. Satisfaction is calculated as the proportion of service interactions where “Completely Satisfied”, “Satisfied” or “Somewhat Satisfied” was selected, where each service interaction is weighted as 1 / the total number of services that person answered questions about (up to 3).
- Age range taken from Q3 Please enter your age (years) and sorted into 3 age brackets.
- Genders taken from responses with n=>50 for Q4 What is your gender?
- Regions classified as ‘Metro’ or ‘Regional’ based on postcode data from Q8 Please enter your postcode for your usual place of residence and the ABS Correspondence table of 2017 Postcodes to 2016 Remoteness Area. Metro is any postcode where the majority of the people in that postcode are classified as being in “Major Cities of Australia”. Remote is all other classifications.