The inaugural OECD Survey on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions offers a modern measurement tool for public governance. The Trust Survey is the first cross-national investigation dedicated to identifying the drivers of trust in government, across levels of government and across institutions. It is a nationally-representative survey, run in 22 countries, evaluating citizens’ confidence in public institutions. The questions in the survey build on the OECD Framework on Drivers of Trust in Public Institutions, developed over the past decade by the Public Governance Committee, as well as on a series of OECD country studies and research projects exploring how to build trust in government.

The survey measures government performance across five drivers of trust – reliability, responsiveness, integrity, openness, and fairness – and provides insights for future policy reforms. This investigation marks an important initiative by OECD countries to measure and better understand what drives people’s trust in public institutions – a crucial part of reinforcing democracy.

Key findings

• Results from the survey illustrate that governments could do better in responding to citizens’ concerns. Just under four in ten respondents, on average across countries, say that their government would improve a poorly performing service, implement an innovative idea, or change a national policy in response to public demands.
• Public perceptions of government integrity are also an issue. Just under half of respondents, on average across countries, think a high-level political official would grant a political favour in exchange for the offer of a well-paid private sector job, and about one-third predict a civil servant would accept money in exchange for speeding up access to a service.
• Younger people, women, people living on low income, people with low levels of education, and people who feel financially insecure consistently report lower levels of trust in government.
• Scepticism towards the news media suggests that a key component of democracy, access to reliable information, is a factor of distrust.