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The latest survey conducted in late-December showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 61.4 marks, and 56% supported him as the Chief Executive. Regarding people's appraisal of the overall performance of the HKSAR Government, the latest figures revealed that 45% were satisfied, whereas 17% were dissatisfied. Recent figures on people's appraisal of the five specific policy areas of the HKSAR Government are tabulated as follows:
Date of survey |
18-20/12/06 |
19-21/3/07 |
15-21/6/07 |
17-21/9/07 |
19-24/12/07 |
Latest change |
Sample base |
1,016 |
1,007 |
1,006 |
1,008 |
1,019 |
-- |
Overall response rate |
64.1% |
63.6% |
65.2% |
65.5% |
66.2% |
-- |
Sampling error of percentages
(at 95% conf. level)* |
+/-3% |
+/-3% |
+/-3% |
+/-3% |
+/-3% |
-- |
Finding /Sampling error* |
Finding |
Finding |
Finding |
Finding |
Finding |
Error |
-- |
Relation with the Central Government: Satisfaction rate** |
58% |
67% |
65% |
70% |
60% |
+/-3% |
-10% |
Relation with the Central Government: Dissatisfaction rate** |
12% |
8% |
8% |
9% |
13% |
+/-2% |
+4% |
Maintaining economic prosperity: Satisfaction rate** |
46% |
56% |
57% |
58% |
54% |
+/-3% |
-4% |
Maintaining economic prosperity: Dissatisfaction rate** |
19% |
11% |
13% |
16% |
18% |
+/-2% |
+2% |
Protecting human rights and freedom: Satisfaction rate** |
42% |
50% |
50% |
54% |
48% |
+/-3% |
-6% |
Protecting human rights and freedom: Dissatisfaction rate** |
21% |
17% |
19% |
17% |
19% |
+/-2% |
+2% |
Pace of democratic development: Satisfaction rate** |
28% |
37% |
34% |
36% |
34% |
+/-3% |
-2% |
Pace of democratic development: Dissatisfaction rate** |
35% |
28% |
32% |
32% |
32% |
+/-3% |
-- |
Improving people's livelihood:
Satisfaction rate** |
25% |
37% |
36% |
32% |
29% |
+/-3% |
-3% |
Improving people's livelihood: Dissatisfaction rate** |
34% |
23% |
26% |
34% |
35% |
+/-3% |
+1% |
* "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. Media can state "sampling error of percentages not more than +/-3% at 95% confidence level" when quoting the above figures.
** Collapsed from a 5-point scale.
Of the 5 specific policy areas, people were most satisfied with the government's handling of its relation with the Central Government, with a satisfaction percentage of 60%. The government's performance in maintaining economic prosperity and protecting human rights and freedom followed, attaining a satisfaction percentage of 54% and 48% correspondingly. Meanwhile, a respective of 34% and 29% of the respondents were satisfied with the government's performance in developing democracy as well as improving people's livelihood. |
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In January 2007, POP opened a feature page called "Opinion Daily" at the "POP Site", to record significant events and selected polling figures on a day-to-day basis. Our purpose is to provide readers with accurate information so that they can judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. When "Opinion Daily" began to operate on January 17, 2007, it only contained significant events and popularity figures of the Chief Executive over the past few months. As of today, it contains a chronology of events starting from May 1, 2006, and many poll figures registered since January 1, 2006. Readers can now check on the results of 9 different polling items compiled by POP, including the popularity of the Chief Executive, the HKSAR government, and the Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system. In near future, the content of "Opinion Daily" will continue to expand, in order to promote the science of opinion polling.
In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP since July 24 each day a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to the "Opinion Daily" feature page as soon as they are verified by POP, in order to provide readers with swifter and more accurate information.
In August 2007, POP began to include in its regular press releases a list of significant events which happened in between two surveys, so that readers can make their own judgment on whether these events have any effect on the ups and downs of the polling figures. This press release is no exception.
For the polling items covered in this press release, using the previous survey as a reference point for comparison, our "Opinion Daily" for this release starts on September 17, 2007, because the previous survey of some items was conducted from September 17-21, 2007 while this survey was conducted from December 19-24, 2007. During this period, herewith the significant events selected from counting newspaper headlines and commentaries on a daily basis and covered by at least 25% of the local newspaper articles. Readers can make their own judgment if these significant events have any impacts to different polling figures.
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Commentary
Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of Public Opinion Programme, observed, "Compared to early December, the approval rate of CE Donald Tsang has dropped slightly, but his support rating has dropped significantly, and his disapproval rate increased significantly to more than 20% for the first time. However, all in all, Donald Tsang's popularity is still on the high side. On the other hand, compared to a month ago, people's satisfaction with the SAR government has plunged 7 percentage points. Across the 5 specific areas of government performance, compared to 3 months ago, all indicators have dropped. The biggest drop was registered in the government's handling of its relation with the Central Government, which used to be its strongest area. Having dropped 10 percentage points, satisfaction rate in this aspect is still 60%, higher than all other indicators. As for the reasons affecting the ups and downs of these figures, we leave it to our readers to form their own judgment using the detailed records displayed in our 'Opinion Daily', but there is little doubt that recent discussions on political reform is an important factor."
News about POP
POP's normal practice is to release the results of our regular surveys every Tuesday afternoon via our POP Site, except during public holidays, each time with a forecast of the items to be released in the next 7 days. According to schedule, our next release of regular survey findings will be December 31, 2007, Monday, between 1pm and 2pm, when the latest figures of the 2007 year-end and 2008 forecast survey will be released.
Our general practice is to answer all questions on the research design of the surveys published in the POP Site as soon as we receive them, but we will not further comment on the findings. We welcome questions for fol-up purpose, please email them to us at <[email protected]>. We will keep such an arrangement under constant review, suggestions most welcome. Please note that everything carried in the POP Site does not represent the stand of the University of Hong Kong. Dr Robert Ting-Yiu Chung, Director of POP, is responsible for everything posted herewith, except for column articles which represent the stand of their authors.
For the whole of last year, we have included in our regular press releases a small educational section for the purpose of sharing our research experience with the readers and the general public, and the subject of our education section today is "About HKUPOP". In the near future, we will keep on stepping up our effort in promoting general civic education to enhance our POP Site accordingly.
About HKUPOP
Again on mapping people's trust and satisfaction of different governments
One important aspect of opinion polling around the world is to monitor people's trust and satisfaction of the government. Shortly after HKUPOP was established, we started to conduct surveys on these aspects. Regarding the development of these surveys, we have explained it separately in our press releases of August 22, November 28, December 14 and 27, 2006, April 3, July 3 as well as September 25, 2007. Today, we post it again in order to give readers a complete picture of such developments.
(1) Mapping people's trust in different governments
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Due to Hong Kong's very special political status, before the handover in 1997, our survey covered people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. After the handover, the survey method remained unchanged, but the term British Hong Kong Government was substituted by HKSAR Government, and Chinese Government was substituted by Central Government, while our survey on people's trust in the British Government stopped.
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Our surveys began in December 1992, the wordings used in the questionnaire are "On the whole, do you trust such and such government?". Surveys were conducted once every month, until October 1997 when it was changed to once every two months. It has remained unchanged since then.
(2) Mapping people's satisfaction with the government
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In December 1992, we started to survey people's trust in the British Hong Kong, British, Chinese, and Taiwan Governments. These surveys continued after the handover, but we expanded their scope by introducing people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government. We take measurements as frequently as we could, using our limited resources. Besides people's general satisfaction with the HKSAR Government, our survey also includes indicators on the government's performance in maintaining economic prosperity, improving people's livelihood, pace of democratic development, and so on.
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Our surveys on people's satisfaction with the HKSAR Government in general began in July 1997. Since then, it has been conducted once every month. The wordings used in the questionnaire are "Are you satisfied with the overall performance of the HKSAR Government?".
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Also from July 1997, we began to survey people's satisfaction with the government's performance in five policy areas using the following questions: "Are you satisfied with the performance of the HKSAR Government in maintaining economic prosperity / improving people's livelihood / developing democracy / protecting human rights and freedom / handling of its relation with the Central Government?" The frequency of these sub-indicator surveys, however, was gradually thinned down from once every month at the beginning, to once every two months between July 2000 and May 2003, and then to once every three months since July 2003, in order to match the changing social conditions.
Before May 2000, the sample size of our regular surveys was set at slightly over 500, we increased it to at least 1,000 after that. The above surveys are no exceptions. The findings of these surveys are now published regularly on-line at our HKU POP Site, while all previous findings published via our newsletter POP Express have also been uploaded on-line in various formats.
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