Australians still trust their public services, says latest survey

The Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme and Medicare must be doing something right. A new public service survey shows them to be the three most trusted services in the country.

The Australian Electoral Commission (AEC) joined those three at the top of the ‘most satisfied’ category.

Australians are still largely trustful of their public institutions and satisfied with their interactions with most agencies, as shown in the Trust in Public Services 2024 annual report just published by the Australian Public Service Commission (APSC).

The survey shows satisfaction with public services has remained stable at 68 per cent in 2024, the same as in 2023.

Respondents were most satisfied with respectful interactions with staff and the accuracy of information provided. They were least satisfied with elements of service processes, such as the amount of time to reach an outcome and being kept informed of progress and wait times.

The survey reported on more than 11,000 responses from July 2023 to June 2024, as well as additional analysis from previous years.

Report shows feedback on 16 public services from data collected from about 1000 people each month.

Assistant Minister for the Public Service Patrick Gorman said the government was pleased with the level of satisfaction and trust Australians were placing in the Australian Public Service (APS).

“These results show the Australian Public Service is not only meeting the demands of today, but is also building a foundation of trust and integrity for the future,” he said.

“We are committed to transparency and are actively addressing the areas where Australian public services need to be improved.

“Each public servant has a role to play in helping create trust and integrity in the service.”

The latest report marks the third consecutive year of stable trust levels.

The key findings included:

• Nearly three in four respondents (71 per cent) trusted the specific services they used.
• More than two-thirds of respondents (68 per cent) were satisfied with the service they received.
• More than three-quarters of respondents (77 per cent) were satisfied with the outcome of their interactions with public services.

The report details how trust and satisfaction are linked to respondents’ individual characteristics, reasons for accessing services and service access experiences.

“Consistent with previous years, trust in public services strongly related to individual characteristics like life satisfaction, trust in others, age, and major life events,” the report states.

“On average, women trusted public services less than men (53 per cent to 63 per cent), similar to 2023.

“On average, people who lived in regional areas trusted public services less than people who lived in metro areas (53 per cent to 60 per cent).”

Methodology changed this year so findings are not directly comparable to previously published results.

The main change asked respondents to rate their trust and satisfaction on a five-point scale, rather than the seven-point scale previously used.

This resulted in a greater proportion of respondents rating their trust and satisfaction as neutral (neither agree nor disagree).

“To allow for meaningful comparisons, the results presented in this report from previous years have been corrected to put them on an equivalent basis to this year’s results,” the report states.

“The correction method assumes a proportion of respondents in previous years would also have been more neutral in their responses if asked using the five-point scale, and adjusts the trusting, distrusting, satisfied, and dissatisfied rates accordingly.

“The method has been quality assured by the Australian Bureau of Statistics. We also changed the way we asked about which services people accessed.”

This does not affect the results for most services, according to the report.

“However, for the Australian Electoral Commission, it resulted in over 20 times as many people answering questions about the service,” it states. “This resulted in reported trust and satisfaction for the AEC becoming much more neutral.”

The survey results aligned with the recent findings of the OECD Trust in Public Institutions survey, which reported Australians’ trust in Federal Government services increased from 38 per cent in 2021 to 46 per cent in 2023.