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

(1) The Public Opinion Programme at the University of Hong Kong will release on November 12 (Thursday) via POP SITE the findings of the latest survey of WorldPublicOpinion.org (WPO) conducted around the world. The topic of the survey is World Views of China and the United States. The survey interviewed 20,349 people in 23 regions worldwide between April 4 and July 9, 2009.

(2) Director of POP Robert Chung delivered his 「Hong Kong Letter」 entitled "Popularity of the Chief Executive" on RTHK last Saturday. With the consent of RTHK, its content has been uploaded under POP column at the POP SITE.

POP interviewed 1,007 Hong Kong people between November 3 and 7 by means of a random telephone survey conducted by real interviewers. The survey shows that compared to the last survey, CE Donald Tsang's support rating has gone up by 1.3 marks, his approval rate is up by 3 percentage points, and his disapproval rate down by 3 percentage points. All changes are just below sampling errors. CE's net popularity now stands at negative 8 percentage points, with a support rating still below 50. For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the support ratings of CS Henry Tang and FS John Tsang have significantly gone down by 2.0 and 2.9 marks respectively, while the approval rate of FS John Tsang is significantly down by 5 percentage points. Both the support rating and approval rate of SJ Wong Yan-lung have remained stable. The net approval rates of the three officials now stand at positive 40, 40 and 61 percentage points respectively. 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 5 among 12 Directors have gone up, 5 have gone down, while 2 remain unchanged. Among them, those with changes in approval rate beyond sampling error include Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau, both up by 7 percentage points, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, down 7 percentage points, and Secretary for Development Carrie Lam, down 6 percentage points. Among the Directors of Bureaux, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam and Secretary for Education Michael Suen register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 6 and negative 4 percentage points. According to the benchmarks set by us quite some time ago, Ambrose Lee now falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Wong Yan-lung, John Tsang, Matthew Cheung, Henry Tang and York Chow can be labeled as "successful", Carrie Lam, Eva Cheng, Donald Tsang, Edward Yau, Michael Suen, Tsang Tak-sing and Stephen Lam can be labeled as "mediocre", Denise Yue, Ceajer Chan and Rita Lau can be labeled as "inconspicuous". No official falls under the categories of "depressing" or "disastrous". Director of POP Robert Chung explains that statistically speaking, changes in CE Donald Tsang's popularity figures fall within sampling errors means that such changes are not significant at 95% confidence level, but that does not mean that they are not practically useful or meaningful. One needs to look at other related figures, the sample size of surveys, and the trend of changes. On the whole, CE Donald Tsang's popularity seems to have recovered from its record low, but is still negative. The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-1 and +/-4 percentage points at 95% confidence level, while the sampling error of rating figures needs another calculation. The response rate of the survey is 72%.

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 1,007 successful interviews, not 1,007 x 71.8% response rate. In the past, many media made this mistake.
* The maximum sampling error of all approval and disapproval rates is between +/-1 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 +/-1.4 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 mid-2009. 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 49.7 marks, and 38% 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, 55.8 and 61.9 marks, and 50%, 53% and 65% 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 67%. Secretary for Labour and Welfare Matthew Cheung ranked the 2nd and attained 52%. Secretary for Food and Health York Chow and Secretary for Development Carrie Lam ranked the 3rd and 4th places as they gained 50% and 45% vote of confidence from the public respectively. The 5th to 10th ranks went to Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng, Secretary for the Environment Edward Yau, Secretary for the Civil Service Denise Yue, Secretary for Education Michael Suen, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan and Secretary for Home Affairs Tsang Tak-sing, with respective support rates of 40%, 36%, 32%, 32%, 30% and 29%. Meanwhile, Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau and Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen lam shared the 11th rank, both achieving 28%. In other words, only Ambrose Lee, Matthew Cheung and York Chow 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 October 6 to 11, 2009 while this survey was conducted from November 3 to 7, 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 the last survey, CE Donald Tsang's support rating has gone up by 1.3 marks, his approval rate is up by 3 percentage points, and his disapproval rate down by 3 percentage points. All changes are just below sampling errors. CE's net popularity now stands at negative 8 percentage points, with a support rating still below 50. It should be noted that statistically speaking, changes within sampling errors means that such changes are not significant at 95% confidence level, but that does not mean that they are not practically useful or meaningful. One needs to look at other related figures, the sample size of surveys, and the trend of changes. On the whole, CE Donald Tsang's popularity seems to have recovered from its record low, but is still negative.

For the Secretaries of Departments, compared to one month ago, the support ratings of CS Henry Tang and FS John Tsang have significantly gone down by 2.0 and 2.9 marks respectively, while the approval rate of FS John Tsang is significantly down by 5 percentage points. Both the support rating and approval rate of SJ Wong Yan-lung have remained stable. The net approval rates of the three officials now stand at positive 40, 40 and 61 percentage points respectively. 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 5 among 12 Directors have gone up, 5 have gone down, while 2 remain unchanged. Among them, those with changes in approval rate beyond sampling error include Secretary for Transport and Housing Eva Cheng and Secretary for Commerce and Economic Development Rita Lau, both up by 7 percentage points, Secretary for Financial Services and the Treasury Ceajer Chan, down 7 percentage points, and Secretary for Development Carrie Lam, down 6 percentage points.

Among the Directors of Bureaux, only Secretary for Constitutional and Mainland Affairs Stephen Lam and Secretary for Education Michael Suen register negative popularity, meaning that their disapproval rates are higher than their approval rates. Their net popularity figures now stand at negative 6 and negative 4 percentage points.

According to the benchmarks set by us quite some time ago, Ambrose Lee now falls under the category of "ideal" performance. Wong Yan-lung, John Tsang, Matthew Cheung, Henry Tang and York Chow can be labeled as "successful", Carrie Lam, Eva Cheng, Donald Tsang, Edward Yau, Michael Suen, Tsang Tak-sing and Stephen Lam can be labeled as "mediocre", Denise Yue, Ceajer Chan 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:

• November 12, 2009 (Thursday) 1pm to 2pm: World views on China and the United States
• November 17, 2009 (Tuesday) 1pm to 2pm: Hong Kong people's feeling towards different governments and peoples