Context
The Australian economy has experienced twenty-seven years of economic growth. A remarkable performance that is unprecedented both historically and in comparison with other OECD countries over the period. Yet, during the same time Australia has suffered a period of democratic decline and the depth of that decline has increased dramatically since 2007 (Stoker et al., 2018a). The level of democratic satisfaction has decreased steadily across each government from 86 percent in 2007 (Howard), to 72 percent in 2010 (Rudd), 72 percent in 2013 (Abbott) and 41 percent in July 2018 under Malcolm Turnbull. Australia’s least trusted institutions are: political parties (16%), web based media (20%), print media (29%), trade unions (30%), federal government (31%) and television media (32%). Australia’s least trusted professions are: MPs (21%), government ministers (23%), trade unionists (26%) and journalists (28%). And more than 60 percent of Australians believe the honesty and integrity of politicians is low. In contrast, public servants are one of our most trusted professions (39%) after judges (56%) and GPs (81%).
The decline in democratic satisfaction is not peculiar to Australia but what is remarkable is that it is occurring in a period of affluence. It is unsurprising, for example, that certain European countries impacted by the worst excesses of the Global Financial Crisis and austerity politics should turn away from the established political order and look for a new form of populist politics. But apart from the evident rise in citizen expectations of government, why is this happening in Australia? Is it being experienced differently in urban, regional and rural Australia? And, what impact is it having on public experience of Australian public services?
Purpose
This rapid review investigates academic and grey literature that address four areas of inquiry: 1) explanation of what drives or undermines trust; 2) evidence of whether and how declining trust is impacting on public experience of services; 3) evidence of how trust influences public behaviour such as the uptake of services; and 4), how the Australian Public Service (APS) can enhance the quality of public service production and use the service experience as a space for trust building.
The cumulative compilation of this evidence base will help the ‘Understanding public trust in Australian public services across regional Australia’ project better understand the drivers, barriers and enablers of public trust in the delivery of Australian public services in regional areas. In combining practical service delivery guidelines from the literature and a comprehensive understanding of how trust is built, this project will provide a valuable contribution to understanding regional service delivery through a nuanced lens of theory and practice.
Structure
The review is organized into five sections which combine to provide a cumulative understanding of trust in government and public services.
Section 1 provides an operational definition of trust to inform subsequent empirical work, explores the nature and relevance of the trust problem in the context of the operations of contemporary democracies and presents a case for why trust in government and by implication public services is important.
Section 2 outlines various demand and supply side theories that can help explain what is driving trust or its absence and demonstrates that trust is a multi-dimensional, “wicked” problem that requires a broad range of responses.
Section 3 reviews the evidence on public perceptions of the quality of the supply of public services in Australia.
Section 4 assesses the quality of the management of public services in Australia.
And Section 5, presents a conceptual frame, key indicators and research questions to guide qualitative research on the quality of public service production in regional Australia.