HKU POP SITE releases the latest ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability systemBack

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 ratings of CE Tung Chee-hwa and Principal Officials under the accountability system. POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday at 2 pm via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the forthcoming week. We will review and adjust this operation regularly.

According to this schedule, the date and time of our next release will be December 17, 2002, Tuesday, at 2 pm, the latest results on people's expectation towards the Sixth Policy Address of CE Tung Chee-hwa, as well as their satisfaction with CE's policy direction, will be released. We will also release a summary of people's satisfaction with CE Tung Chee-hwa's five policy addresses in the past.

According to the latest figures released today, CE Tung Chee-hwa's rating registered in early December (December 2-6) was 48.0 marks, representing an increase of 0.6 mark when compared with that of mid-November, which was not statistically significant.

As for the popularity ratings for the three Secretaries, the rating of CS Donald Tsang Yam-kuen registered in early December was 61.4 marks, an increase of 1.3 marks when compared with that of early November. Meanwhile, the popularity rating of FS Antony Leung Kam-chung has recorded its first rebound since late June. His latest rating was 52.8 marks, representing an increase of 1.0 mark compared with that of early November. The increase, however, was not statistically significant. On the other hand, the latest rating of SJ Elsie Leung Oi-sie was 46.3 marks, indicating a drop of 1.1 marks when compared with that registered in early November, which was also not statistically significant. Up to now, the average ratings of CS, FS and SJ for the year 2002 were 63.9, 58.5 and 49.7 marks respectively.

Regarding the popularity ranking of Directors of Bureaux, because it is POP's long established practice not to treat ratings of persons with less than 50% benchmark recognition rate as representative, therefore, among the eleven Directors of Bureaux, the rating of Secretary for Constitutional Affairs Stephen Lam Sui-lung is not taken as representative in this survey, and has been listed separately in our summary tables. According to our latest findings obtained in early December, the most popular official was Secretary for the Environment, Transport and Works Sarah Liao Sau-tung, attaining 62.4 marks, leading with quite a wide margin from the rest. Secretary for Health, Welfare and Food Yeoh Eng-kiong, Secretary for Economic Development and Labour Stephen Ip Shu-kwan, and Secretary for Security Regina Ip Lau Suk-yee ranked from second to fourth, with popularity ratings of 55.8, 55.2 and 54.9 marks correspondingly. Secretary for Housing, Planning and Lands Michael Suen Ming-yeung, Secretary for Commerce, Industry and Technology Henry Tang Ying-yen, and Secretary for Education and Manpower Arthur Li Kwok-cheung shared the fifth rank, each attaining 53.6 marks. The eighth to tenth ranks fell to Secretary for the Civil Service Joseph Wong Wing-ping, Secretary for Home Affairs Patrick Ho Chi-ping, and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Frederick Ma Si-hang, with popularity ratings of 51.7, 50.9 and 39.9 marks correspondingly.

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 errors of the ratings of CE, CS, FS and SJ are plus/minus 1.4, 1.0, 1.2 and 1.4 marks respectively, while those of the ratings of Directors of Bureaux with recognition rates reaching 50% are less than plus/minus 1.6 marks. That means 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 comment on the findings at this stage. 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.