HKU POP SITE releases the latest figures on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, its Secretaries, and members of the Legislative and Executive Councils in generalBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong today releases on schedule via the "HKU POP SITE" (http://hkupop.pori.hk) the latest survey figures on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, its Secretaries, and members of the Legislative and Executive Councils in general. Since last month, our POP Site has been releasing the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next two weeks. The POP Site will review and adjust this operation regularly; readers are welcome to leave their comments here.

According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be April 2, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest figures on people's trust in the HKSAR and Beijing Central Governments will be released. Then, on April 9, 2002, at 2 pm, we will release the latest popularity ratings of CE, the Chief Secretary Donald Tsang Yam-kuen and the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung, and the findings of the Budget follow-up survey.

According to the latest figures released today, people's satisfaction with the government's performance dropped for the first time after five consecutive increases recorded since last September. On the contrary, dissatisfaction climbed for the first time after it has dropped for four consecutive months since last October. Our latest findings (in early March) show that 22% of the population were satisfied with the government's performance, but a considerably higher portion of 42% were dissatisfied. However, as the survey was conducted before the Financial Secretary Antony Leung Kam-chung announced his Budget, the effect of the Budget is yet to be seen.

As regards the general performance of the Legislative Councillors, our latest findings (in early March) show that 22% were satisfied, 28% expressed dissatisfaction while 30% remained neutral, another 21% failed to give any definite answer. When compared to the results obtained in early January, the satisfaction rate increased by four percentage points, dissatisfaction rate increased by two percentage points, while the percentage of "half-half" dropped by eight percentage points.

Regarding people's satisfaction with the performance of three government Secretaries in general, following the upward trend recorded in January, there was a further increase of three percentage points. Our latest findings (in early March) reveal that 24% were satisfied, 35% not, while 29% said "half-half". As to the overall performance of the Executive Councillors, our latest figures (in early March) show that 18% were satisfied with their performance, 32% not, 29% answered "half-half", while another 20% did not give any definite answer. The satisfaction rate also increased by three percentage points when compared to that registered in early January.

The new survey reported in the POP Site today is a random telephone survey conducted by interviewers, targeting at Cantonese speakers in Hong Kong of age 18 or above. The sample size of the survey is over 1,000 respondents. At 95% confidence level, the sampling error of all percentages is less than plus/minus 3.2 percentage points. The meaning of "95% confidence level" is that if we were to repeat a certain survey 100 times, using the same questions each time but with different random samples, we would expect 95 times getting a figure within the error margins specified.　Shall anyone have any question regarding the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site, members of the POP Team will be happy to answer them, but we will not be able to provide additional comments. Such an arrangement would be reviewed when more resources are available. Please note that Dr CHUNG Ting-yiu Robert, Director of Public Opinion Programme, is solely responsible for the work published in the POP Site, which does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong.