HKU POP releases a Budget instant pollBack

(1) "2013 Sha Tin District Council Tin Sum Constituency By-election Guessing Game" was launched

The "PopCon" e-platform (http://popcon.hk) hosted by the Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong is now running the"2013 Sha Tin District Council Tin Sum Constituency By-election Guessing Game", users can now make guesses on the result of the Sha Tin District Council Tin Sum Constituency By-election due to take place on March 10, until 00:00AM on the election day.

(2) "PopVote Civil Referendum Project" kicks off again and calls for public donations

POP at the University of Hong Kong and Centre for Social Policy Studies at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University jointly held a press conference some time ago to introduce the future development of the"PopVote Civil Referendum Project", as well as to invite donations of HKD800,000 from public to construct and enhance the e-Voting system. The general public can log onto the"Donate Now" page of the "PopVote" website (http://popvote.hk) and leave their contact information if they wish to make a donation.

POP interviewed 1,024 Hong Kong people last night (27 February) by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. After excluding those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, this year's instant survey shows that 30% are satisfied with the Budget, 31% are dissatisfied and 37% say"half-half". The average rating registered for the Budget is 53.6 marks, with a recognition rate of 77%. In other words, people's instant appraisal of the first budget of CY Leung's administration is only mediocre. Compared to the last budget of Donald Tsang's administration, also delivered by John Tsang, people's satisfaction rate drops significantly by 8 percentage points, while satisfaction rating also drops significantly by 3.4 marks. Net satisfaction drops from positive 12 to negative 1 percentage point. In terms of personal popularity, both the support rating and approval rate of John Tsang have dropped after his Budget Talk, meaning that he has not gained any popularity from the Budget. Further analysis shows that respondents of age 50 or above are most satisfied with the Budget, and support John Tsang most. How people's reaction will change after knowing more about the Budget will have to be revealed by our next survey. The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures and indepth analysis needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 67%.

[2] The sample size of this survey is 1,024 successful interviews, not 1,024 x 67.3% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
[3] The maximum sampling error of all percentages is +/-3 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation."95% confidence level" means 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. When quoting these figures, journalists can state"sampling error of various ratings not more than +/-1.5 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level". 
[4] Because of sampling errors in conducting the survey, and rounding procedures in collating the figures, when quoting percentages of this survey, journalists should refrain from reporting decimal places, but when quoting the rating figures, one decimal place can be used, in order to match the precision level of the figures.
[5] The data of this survey is collected by means of random telephone interviews conducted by real interviewers, not by any interactive voice system (IVS). If a research organization uses"computerized random telephone survey" to camouflage its IVS operation, it should be considered unprofessional.

Since 1992, HKUPOP has been conducting Policy Address instant surveys every year. From 1998 onwards, we expanded our instant surveys to cover the Budget Talks. In free and democratic societies, instant surveys are indispensable sources of free information. Combined with appropriate follow-up surveys, and in parallel to expert analyses, they give a multi-dimensional picture of opinion development. They are an important part of a society's interactive development. Starting 2008, we split up previous years' instant survey into two surveys. In our first survey, we measure people's overall appraisal of the Budget, their rating of the Budget, their change in confidence towards Hong Kong's future, and FS's popularity. In our second survey, we focus on people's reactions towards different government proposals, their satisfaction with the government's fiscal policies, and other relevant issues. Starting 2011, we revised our design to concentrate on people's appraisal of the Budget and FS's popularity in our instant survey, and move the remaining questions to our follow-up survey. There is no change to our operation this year.

People's satisfaction figures with this year's Budget are summarized below together with the previous findings:

[7] Collapsed from a 5-point scale, all errors in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sample error.
[8] Sub-samples exclude those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, while "recognition rates" used to indicate people's knowledge level further exclude those who answered "don't know / hard to say".
[9] Sub-sample base has excluded those who said they had heard nothing of the Budget. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected. Since the base is smaller, the sampling error is bigger.
[10] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.

After excluding those respondents who said they had heard nothing of the Budget, this year's instant survey shows that 30% are satisfied with the Budget, 31% are dissatisfied and 37% say"half-half". The average rating registered for the Budget is 53.6 marks, with a recognition rate of 77%.

Figures on various Financial Secretaries' popularity before and after their Budget Speeches since 2001^[11] are summarized as follows:

[11] FS rating was introduced in our Budget instant poll in 2001, while approval rate was introduced in 2005. This table therefore starts from 2001.
[12] All errors in the table are calculated at 95% confidence level. "95% confidence level" means 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. Questions using only sub-samples would have bigger sample error. Sampling errors of ratings are calculated according to the distribution of the scores collected.
[13] These questions only use the concerned sub-samples for the tracking surveys between 2006 and 2010.
[14] The frequency of FS rating and approval rate was different before November 2005.
[15] Such changes have gone beyond the sampling errors at the 95% confidence level, meaning that they are statistically significant prima facie. However, whether numerical differences are statistically significant or not is not the same as whether they are practically useful or meaningful.
[16] This was the first Budget by Henry Tang after Donald Tsang became the Acting Chief Executive.
[17] This is the first Budget by John Tsang after CY Leung became the Chief Executive.

The survey shows that the latest rating of FS John Tsang after his Budget Talk is 56.6 marks, with approval and disapproval rates of 48% and 12% respectively.

In the survey, we also asked respondents for their age. If they were reluctant to give their exact age, they could give us a range. According to their answers, we grouped them into 18-29, 30-49, and 50 years or older. Herewith further analysis of public's satisfaction rate of the Budget, and John Tsang's rating and approval rates by respondents' age:

[18] Differences among sub-groups are tested to be statistically significant at 95% confidence level.

Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed,"Based on those who understand the Budget, our survey finds that people's instant appraisal of the first budget of CY Leung's administration is only mediocre. Compared to the last budget of Donald Tsang's administration, also delivered by John Tsang, people's satisfaction rate drops significantly by 8 percentage points, while satisfaction rating also drops significantly by 3.4 marks. Net satisfaction drops from positive 12 to negative 1 percentage point. In terms of personal popularity, both the support rating and approval rate of John Tsang have dropped after his Budget Talk, meaning that he has not gained any popularity from the Budget. Further analysis shows that respondents of age 50 or above are most satisfied with the Budget, and support John Tsang most. How people's reaction will change after knowing more about the Budget will have to be revealed by our next survey."

• March 5, 2013 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Budget First follow-up survey

• March 7, 2013 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: Top 10 political groups