HKU POP SITE releases popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability systemBack

The Public Opinion Programme (POP) at the University of Hong Kong interviewed 1,002 Hong Kong people between September 1 and 4 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey shows that compared to two weeks ago, CE Donald Tsang's support rating has dropped back significantly to the level registered in March 2009. Though CE's approval rate remains unchanged, his disapproval rate has increased notably by 4 percentage points, giving him a net popularity of zero. For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the support ratings of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung have all remained stable. In terms of approval rate, only that of Henry Tang has increased, and also beyond sampling error. His net approval rate now stands at positive 35 percentage points while those of John Tsang and Wong Yan-lung stay at positive 25 and 54 percentage points. Wong Yan-lung remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department. As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the approval rates of most Directors have dropped. Among them, those with drops beyond sampling errors include Secretary for Food and Health York Chow, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Environment Edward Yau. Their approval rates have gone down by 9, 5 and 5 percentage points respectively. Meanwhile, the approval rate of Secretary for Education Michael Suen is at record low since he took up the post. Among the Directors of Bureaux, Secretary for Education Michael Suen and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularities now stand at negative 7 and 2 percentage points. According to the benchmarks set by us quite some time ago, Ambrose Lee now falls under the categories of "ideal" performance. Wong Yan-lung and Matthew Cheung can be labeled as "successful", Henry Tang, Carrie Lam, York Chow, Donald Tsang, John Tsang, Tsang Tak-sing, Stephen Lam and Michael Suen can be labeled as "mediocre", and Eva Cheng, Ceajer Chan, Denise Yue, Edward Yau and Rita Lau can be labeled as "inconspicuous". No official falls under the categories of "depressing" or "disastrous". The sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-2 to 4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 61%.

Points to note:
* The address of the "HKU POP SITE" is http://hkupop.pori.hk, journalists can check out the details of the survey there.
* The sample size of this survey is 1,002 successful interviews, not 1,002 x 60.5% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-2 and 4 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 +/-1.3 and sampling error of percentages not more than +/- 4% at 95% confidence level".
* 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.
* 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.

POP today releases on schedule via POP SITE the latest popularity figures of CE Donald Tsang, Secretaries of Departments and Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system. All the figures have been weighted according to provisional figures obtained from the Census and Statistics Department regarding the gender-age distribution of the Hong Kong population in 2008 year-end. Herewith the contact information for the latest survey:

As different questions involve different sub-samples, the sample errors will vary accordingly. The table below briefly shows the relationship between sample size and maximum sampling errors for the readers to capture the corresponding changes:

「Maximum sampling errors」 occur when survey figures are close to 50%. If the figures are close to 0% or 100%, the sampling error will diminish accordingly. The sampling errors of ratings, however, will depend on the distribution of the raw figures. Since January 2007, POP lists out the sampling errors of all survey figures in detail and explain them in due course. Recent popularity figures of Donald Tsang are summarized as follows:

Figures on the latest popularity ratings of the three Secretaries of Departments under the accountability system are summarized below:

Figures on the latest popularity ratings of Directors of Bureaux under the accountability system are summarized below:

The latest survey showed that, CE Donald Tsang scored 52.8 marks, and 42% supported him as the Chief Executive. Meanwhile, the corresponding ratings of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung were 55.6, 53.3 and 60.3 marks, and 48%, 41% and 60% would vote for their reappointment correspondingly. As for the Directors of Bureaux, results revealed that the top approval rate fell to Secretary for Security Ambrose Lee, attaining 69%. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung ranked the 2nd and attained 53%. Secretary for Development Carrie Lam and Secretary for Food and Health York Chow shared the 3rd place as they both gained 46% vote of confidence from the public. Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan shared the 5th place as they both gained 34% vote of confidence from the public. The 7th and 8th ranks went to Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue and Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau with respective support rates of 33% and 32%. Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam and Secretary for Education Michael Suen shared the 9th place as they both gained 30% vote of confidence from the public. Meanwhile, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau occupied the 12th rank, achieving 26%. In other words, only Ambrose Lee and Matthew Cheung scored approval rates of over 50% among all Directors of Bureaux.

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, in order to let readers judge by themselves the reasons for the ups and downs of different opinion figures. In July 2007, POP collaborated with Wisers Information Limited whereby Wisers supplies to POP each day starting from July 24, a record of significant events of that day, according to the research method designed by POP. These daily entries would be uploaded to "Opinion Daily" as soon as they are verified by POP.

For the polling items covered in this press release, the previous survey of some items was conducted from August 4 to 10, 2009 while this survey was conducted from September 1 to 4, 2009. 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.

Note: The following commentary was written by Director of POP Robert Chung.

Our latest survey shows that compared to two weeks ago, CE Donald Tsang's support rating has dropped back significantly to the level registered in March 2009. Though CE's approval rate remains unchanged, his disapproval rate has increased notably by 4 percentage points, giving him a net popularity of zero.

For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the support ratings of CS Henry Tang, FS John Tsang and SJ Wong Yan-lung have all remained stable. In terms of approval rate, only that of Henry Tang has increased, and also beyond sampling error. His net approval rate now stands at positive 35 percentage points while those of John Tsang and Wong Yan-lung stay at positive 25 and 54 percentage points. Wong Yan-lung remains to be the most popular Secretary of Department.

As for the Directors of Bureaux, compared to one month ago, the approval rates of most Directors have dropped. Among them, those with drops beyond sampling errors include Secretary for Food and Health York Chow, Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung and Secretary for Environment Edward Yau. Their approval rates have gone down by 9, 5 and 5 percentage points respectively. Meanwhile, the approval rate of Secretary for Education Michael Suen is at record low since he took up the post.

Among the Directors of Bureaux, Secretary for Education Michael Suen and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularities now stand at negative 7 and 2 percentage points.

According to the benchmarks set by us quite some time ago, Ambrose Lee now falls under the categories of "ideal" performance. Wong Yan-lung and Matthew Cheung can be labeled as "successful", Henry Tang, Carrie Lam, York Chow, Donald Tsang, John Tsang, Tsang Tak-sing, Stephen Lam and Michael Suen can be labeled as "mediocre", and Eva Cheng, Ceajer Chan, Denise Yue, Edward Yau and Rita Lau can be labeled as "inconspicuous". No official falls under the categories of "depressing" or "disastrous". As for the reasons affecting the popularity change of these officials, readers can make their own judgment using detailed records shown in our "Opinion Daily" feature page.

The following table summarizes the grading of the principal officials for readers' easy reference:

• September 15, 2009 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Taiwan and Tibet issues, appraisal of past Chinese leaders