The Scottish Government

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CHAPTER THREE: TRUST IN GOVERNMENT

Chapter aims

This chapter addresses four key questions:

• How much do people trust the Scottish Executive to work in Scotland's best interests and how has this changed since the advent of devolution?
• How does trust in the Scottish Executive compare with trust in the UK Government?
• What factors are related to trust?
• What role does the media play in accounting for levels of trust?

Introduction

3.1 Some believe that for a democracy to function effectively its political institutions need to be both trusted by the public and perceived to be responsive to public participation (Almond and Verba, 1963). The Scottish Social Attitudes survey has asked two questions about trust every year since it began in 1999. These questions ask:

How much do you trust the UK government to work in Scotland's best long-term interest?

How much do you trust the Scottish Executive to work in Scotland's best interests?

Between 1999 and 2003 the second question actually asked about the "Scottish Parliament". In response to criticism that the two questions were not comparing two alike bodies (the UK Government is an executive, the Scottish Parliament is a legislature) an experiment was conducted in 2004 where a random half of the sample was asked about the Parliament and half about the Executive. Views were almost identical regardless of the wording and it is therefore safe to conclude that any differences in trust between the two bodies recorded in the preceding years can not be explained by the fact the survey asked about different types of institutions. Indeed, the knowledge questions discussed in Chapter Two confirm that, five years into devolution, for a significant minority of the population the terms are interchangeable.

Trust in government

The Scottish Executive and UK Government compared

3.2 The first thing that is clear from Figure 3.1 is that people consistently place more trust in the Scottish Executive than in the UK Government to look after Scotland's best interests. In 2004, around half (52 per cent) say they trust the Scottish Executive to do this "just about always" or "most of the time", while just over a fifth (22 per cent) say the same of the UK Government.

Figure 3.1 Trust in the UK Government and Scottish Executive, 1999-2004

Levels of trust over time

3.3 Figure 3.1 also illustrates the fact that while levels of trust in the UK Government have been stable at around one in five since 2000 there is a slightly less clear trend when it comes to the Scottish Executive ⁷. Since 2000 the level of trust in the Scottish Executive has alternated each year by around ten percentage points, moving between just over half and just over six in ten. A possible explanation for this variation in trust is that elections took place during the years when higher trust levels were recorded. Britain-wide levels of trust in the UK Government, recorded in the British Social Attitudes survey and British Election Study series, follow a similar pattern whereby general election years seem to increase trust while the intervening years register lower levels overall (see Bromley and Curtice, 2000). The trend in Scotland is, however, distinct in one important way: trust does not appear to be on the decline. Each peak and trough is very similar, give or take a couple of percentage points, whereas Britain-wide trust in the UK Government has seen long-term decline with each of the peaks (coinciding with general elections) being progressively lower each time. The other key point worth considering is that if elections are the cause of these biennial fluctuations in trust in the Scottish Executive then it is perhaps curious that both Scottish Parliament andUK Government elections appear to have a similar effect.

Who is most likely to have high levels of trust in government?

3.4 Once again a range of factors were explored using logistic regression (see Annex 2 of this Report for more details of this method) to see which were significantly and independently associated with high levels of trust in the Scottish Executive. The kinds of factors that are generally found to be related to trust include party political identification, constitutional preference and education levels. It has long been shown that people with higher levels of education are more trusting, while supporters of the political party in power at the time tend to be more trusting than supporters of the opposition (Bromley and Curtice, 2002). In Scotland, people's constitutional preferences also play a part in understanding levels of trust.

3.5 Table 3.1 demonstrates that all these factors are highly associated with trust in the Scottish Executive. The table shows all the factors that were found to be significant in the regression model and these are presented in order of their strength of association. The table also shows how these factors relate to trust in the UK Government, though it should be noted that multivariate analysis only explored trust in the Scottish Executive. Newspaper readership was also found to be significant, this is not presented in the table as it is discussed in greater detail in the next section.

3.6 Supporters of devolution are the most trusting of both governments, for example six in ten (62 per cent) trust the Scottish Executive compared to just over one in three (36 per cent) of those who would prefer a return to direct rule from Westminster. The story for the UK Government is, perhaps unsurprisingly, rather different. Devolution supporters are still the most likely to trust the UK Government (27%), and supporters of independence have the least trust (15%).

3.7 The relationship between trust and awareness of the Scottish Executive's activities over the past year was also examined ( see Chapter Two for a full discussion of this issue). It is quite clear that awareness and trust are closely linked. Six in ten (62%) of those with a high level of awareness also had a high level of trust whereas fewer than half (39%) of those with low awareness had high levels of trust. It is not possible to draw any conclusions about the direction of this relationship; it is not clear whether higher levels of trust lead to higher awareness or vice versa.

Table 3.1 Trust in the Scottish Executive and UK Government, by constitutional preference, awareness of government activities, party identification, education, age, and self-rated hardship

Notes to table

*The figures in the Scottish Executive column relate to knowledge of Scottish Executive activities, the figures in the UK Government column relate to knowledge of UK Govt activities.

3.8 Liberal Democrat supporters have the greatest trust in the Scottish Executive (70%), in contrast to around half of all the other parties' supporters, while just over a third (36%) of those with no party identification have a high level of trust. Given its position as the party of government in Westminster at the time of the survey, it is unsurprising that Labour supporters have higher levels of trust in the UK Government than any of the other parties' supporters - though it is still only a minority of Labour party identifiers who hold this view.

3.9 As already mentioned, the relationship between high levels of education and trust is long established and the findings here confirm the relationship. Another interesting feature of trust is that younger people are no less trusting of governments than older people (Bromley and Curtice, ibid). Interestingly in Scotland it appears that younger people are actually more trusting than older people. Two-thirds (65%) of 18-24 year olds have a high level of trust in the Scottish Executive, compared with less than half (42%) of those aged 65 and over. A similar relationship between age and trust in the UK Government is also evident but is less pronounced.

3.10 Table 3.1 also shows that people who say they are having difficulty coping on their income are less trusting than people who are more comfortable. Though the difference in opinion between these two groups is not as large as for some of the other factors shown in the table.

The role of the media

3.11 The role of the media is another interesting factor related to trust. The Scottish Social Attitudes survey routinely asks whether people read a newspaper regularly and if so which one they read most often. Newspapers have long been of interest to political analysts largely because of their editorialised content and the social segmentation of newspaper circulation.

3.12 A simple analysis of newspaper reading habits and trust shows that 61% of broadsheet readers have high levels of trust in the Scottish Executive compared with 44% of tabloid readers. At 55%, people who do not read any paper (a group which now constitutes 39% of the population) have higher levels of trust than tabloid readers but slightly less than broadsheet readers. Newspaper readership is, of course, related to many other factors, such as education, social class and even the political party people support, all of which are also significantly related to trust. As noted above, newspaper readership was one of the factors found to be significant in the multivariate analysis which was discussed in relation to Table 3.1.

3.13 Figure 3.2 presents a simple illustration of the findings in relation to newspaper readership. This chart focuses on people with a high level of trust in the Scottish Executive and looks at the relationship between their level of awareness of the Scottish Executive and the newspaper they read. It shows that even when people's level of awareness is controlled for, the kind of newspaper they read is still related to their level of trust. For example, amongst those with a high level of awareness, 53% of tabloid readers have a high level of trust compared with 63% of broadsheet readers.

Figure 3.2 Trust in the Scottish Executive, awareness of government activities, and newspaper readership

Key points from this chapter

• Half (52%) trust the Scottish Executive to look after Scotland's interests compared with just over a fifth (22%) who trust the UK Government.
• Since 2000 those who trust the Scottish Executive a great deal or quite a lot has fluctuated from between roughly six in ten and five in ten people in alternate years.
• In the same period trust in the UK Government has remained constant at around one in five.
• It is possible that the increased number of elections that now occur in Scotland could in part explain why trust levels are changing like this.
• The groups most likely to have a high level of trust in the Scottish Executive were: supporters of devolution (as opposed to independence or direct rule from Westminster), people with high levels of awareness of what the Scottish Executive had done over the past year, Liberal Democrat supporters, people with higher education, people aged 18-24, and people who say they are living comfortably on their income.
• Readers of tabloids were less likely to have high levels of trust in the Scottish Executive than broadsheet readers or people who do not read any paper even when their level of awareness of the Executive's activities is taken into account as well as factors such as education level, social class and party political identification.

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