Publications & Archive

Direct services

Public Interest In Standards Of Public Services

Thursday 19 December 2002

MORI was commissioned by the Cabinet Office to examine how much the public knows — or cares — about the way public services in Britain are inspected

MORI interviewed a representative quota sample of 1,687 adults (aged 15 and over) across 168 sampling points in England and Wales. Interviews were conducted face-to-face, in respondents' home, using CAPI (Computer Assisted Personal Interviewing) between 12th and 17th December 2002.
At the analysis stage, the data were weighted by social grade, standard region, unemployment, cars in household, age, work status and gender to match the known population profile.
Where figures do not sum to 100 percent, this may be due to computer rounding, multiple codes or the exclusion of 'don't know / not stated' response categories.
o An asterisk (*) represents a value of less than one half percent, but not zero.
Results are based on all unless otherwise stated.

Q1-4 How well informed, if at all, do you feel about the standards of performance of these local services?

	Very well informed	Fairly well informed	Get only a limited amount of information	Don't know much at all	Don't know
	%	%	%	%	%
Your local NHS hospital	11	33	30	23	2
Local schools	13	31	20	26	10
Your local police force	6	24	36	31	4
Your local Council	7	33	35	23	2

Q1-4 How well informed, if at all, do you feel about the standards of performance of these local services?
Base: All who use / had contact with the service in the last 12 months

	Base	Very well informed	Fairly well informed	Get only a limited amount of information	Don't know much at all	Don't know
	n	%	%	%	%	%
Your local NHS hospital	(1,095)	14	37	30	18	1
Local schools	(416) *1	32	47	12	7	1
Local schools	(316) *2	27	47	17	6	2
Your local police force	(396)	12	30	34	22	2
Your local Council	(716)	12	36	34	18	*

Users of local primary schools
Users of local secondary schools

Q5-8 Which of these statements, if any, is closest to how you feel about the standards of performance of … ?

	I don't know and don't care how well they are performing	As long as they do their job, I don't need to know how well they are performing	I already know enough about how well they are performing	I would like to know more about how well they are performing	Don't know
	%	%	%	%	%
Your local NHS hospital	2	27	26	44	2
Local schools	6	29	29	29	7
Your local police force	2	34	15	47	2
Your local Council	4	29	19	47	2

Q5-8 Which of these statements, if any, is closest to how you feel about the standards of performance of … ?
Base: All who use / had contact with the service in the last 12 months

	Base	I don't know and don't care how well they are performing	As long as they do their job, I don't need to know how well they are performing	I already know enough about how well they are performing	I would like to know more about how well they are performing	Don't know
	n	%	%	%	%	%
Your local NHS hospital	(1,095)	1	23	31	44	1
Local schools	(416) *1	2	15	48	35	1
Local schools	(316) *2	2	16	51	30	*
Your local police force	(396)	1	25	22	50	1
Your local Council	(716)	3	23	23	50	1

Users of local primary schools
Users of local secondary schools

Q9 In which two or three of these ways, if any, would you most like to find out about the standards of performance of public services in your area?

	%
Newsletters through your door from public services saying how well they are performing	58
Official inspection reports that are published in the local papers	38
Information posters/leaflets in libraries or other public places	30
League tables or star gradings which compare your service with those in other parts of the country, published in national and local papers	24
Word-of-mouth from friends or family	22
Information posters/leaflets available in the reception area of the service itself	20
Official inspection reports available on the internet	15
Other	2
None of these	3
Don't know	2

Q10 Which of the following statements, if any, best describes your view of government watch-dog organisations and official inspectorates? For example: OFSTED, The Audit Commission, The Housing Inspectorate.

	%
They make sure that proper standards are maintained in services to the public	31
They keep the public informed about what is good and bad about public services	28
They just add to government bureaucracy	23
They protect the public from getting bad services	22
They don't seem to do very much	18
They interfere with organisations and stop them getting on with their own work	9
Other	2
None of these	1
Don't know	9