Moderator’s guide for focus groups

Thank you for coming here today and agreeing to take part.

• Ethics participation agreement signed
• Stress the confidentiality of the participation (twoway)
• Explain recording/taking notes
• Reaffirm agreement to use of de-identified verbatims in reporting
• Ask for their involvement, an open discussion, no right or wrong answers, no experts
• One person to speak at a time
• Mobile phones off (not just on silent)
• Take off your cynical hat
• Participant introduction (very brief)

Thinking about those issues we’ve just discussed, to what extent do you trust that the Australian government will address those issues?

• What makes you think that?
• I’d like to explore the issue of trust a bit more. When I say the word “trust” what does that mean to you personally? Write down your description of trust in a few words. Discuss

Let’s take that a step further and separate out trust in the Australian government generally and public service delivery from trust in politicians for the purposes of this discussion. Think about the services delivered by the Australian government that are available to you as a citizen. I’m thinking specifically about the services that are on the list in front of you. And I’m not meaning about your level of satisfaction with the delivery of those services, or how good or bad you think they are, I want to understand, if and when you need to use an Australian government service, to what extent you think you can trust that service, considering what you’ve said to me earlier about what trust means to you. So, firstly, I’d like you to rate your overall level of trust in the delivery of Australian government services out of 10 (where 0 is you can’t trust those services at all and 10 is that you trust them completely). Write it down. Go around group and discuss

• What overall trust rating did you give ? Why? What stopped you from giving them one point higher/lower?
• Do you think your trust in government service delivery has declined over time? What are the signs of that for you? What do you think has happened over time that makes you feel that way? What else?
• What level of impact has that decline/increase in your trust had on the extent to which you use government services? If your trust is low, do you still use the service? If you don’t, what do you do instead? Explore examples offered
• Do you think others in your community use government services more or less than you? What gives you that impression? Why do you think that is the case?
• Are there any services you would like to use that you don’t think are available to you?
• Conversely, are there services available that you don’t use? Why is that?
• How much do you think you can trust the Australian federal government to deliver services compared with government services in other countries? In what ways more? In what ways less?
• How much do you think you can trust the Australian federal government to deliver services compared with private sector services in Australia? In what ways more? In what ways less?
• Now, I’d like you to look at the list on the page in front of you and give the delivery of each service a rating out of 10, (where 0 is you can’t trust it to be delivered at all and 10 is you have complete confidence it will be delivered). If you can’t say because you haven’t used a service or you don’t know much about it, that’s okay, just say so.

Discuss each service:

• How did you rate X? What are the signs for you that you can trust that service? What else? Why didn’t you give it one point higher/lower? What makes you think you can’t trust that service? Why? Why not? Go around the group and exhaust each service
• Are there any Australian Government services missing from that list that are important to you? Please explain that for me.

Overall, what are the most important factors for you that make you feel you can trust delivery of an Australian government service?

• Thinking about the government services you trust the most, what is it about them that makes you feel you can trust them more than some of the other services you’ve marked lower? What else?
• What do you think are the things that are preventing or eroding your trust in Australian government services? Write them down. Go around group and exhaust
• What are the issues there? What else?
• What would need to be done to make you feel you could trust them more? What else?
• To what extent does where you get your information about a service make a difference to how much you trust that service to be delivered? Are there any sources of information that specifically increase/decrease your level of trust? Use examples from list

Do you feel you have more, less or about the same access to those federal government services than people in other parts of Australia? Why do you feel that way? What are the signs of that for you? How does that make a difference to you and your family?

• In what ways do you think your geographical location makes it more difficult for you to trust the delivery of these Australian government services? What else?
• What could be done about that to make you feel you could trust delivery of these Australian government services more? What else?
• A lot has been said about digital delivery of services in regional Australia. Thinking about your own use of Australian government services, in what ways does or would digital delivery make you feel you could trust these services more? In what ways, less? What are the issues there? What else?
• What is the delivery ‘baseline’ for trust in these services for you here in X? That is, what are the basic things you think you need to have for a foundation of trust in these services? Go around group and exhaust

Just to finish up with, we’ve talked a lot tonight about trust in the delivery of Australian Government Services; if you had the opportunity to change one thing that would make you feel like you could trust in the delivery of Australian government services more, what would that one thing be? Write it down. Go around group and exhaust

Any final thoughts on trust in the delivery of Australian government services?

Thank Pay Dismiss