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A telephone survey was conducted from 17 to 19 June 2013 by The Chinese University of Hong Kong’s Hong Kong Institute of Asia-Pacific Studies to study the public’s views on  HKSAR government’s performance in various policy areas during the past year.  Eight hundred and thirteen respondents aged 18 or above were successfully interviewed, with a response rate of 44.5%.  The sampling error was + or – 3.44% at a confidence level of 95%.  

Major findings are summarized as follows: 

Among the seven policy areas covered in the survey, the respondents gave the highest rating to Health (54.7 marks) and the lowest to Education (42.8 marks).  The ratings for Welfare, Economic Development, Environment, Housing and Planning, as well as Constitutional Development and Governance were 50.3, 48.6, 46.7, 44.4, and 43.4 marks respectively.  With 50.0 set as a passing mark, the public gave government’s performance in the area of Health and Welfare a pass, while they perceived that the government underperformed in the other five areas, including Education, Constitutional Development and Governance, Housing and Planning, Environment, and Economic Development. 

When the respondents were asked about which policy area they would expect the government to put as top priority for the next year, Housing and Planning topped the list, accounting for almost one-third of the responses (31.7%).  The corresponding figures for Constitutional Development and Governance, Economic Development, Welfare, Health, Education, and Environment were 14.9%, 13.2%, 11.7%, 10.7%, 9.4%, and 3.8% respectively.  The public generally lacked confidence in the government’s ability to improve its performance in the next year.  Nearly half of the respondents (46.6%) expressed no confidence and only 14.1% were confident; 38.0% answered “so-so”.