What trust means to Australian citizens and public service delivery

Before we could explore citizen trust in Australian public service delivery, we first needed to understand what trust means to them. From this, four interrelated components of trust were identified: a) integrity, b) empathy, c) loyalty, and d) attributes associated with delivery (or services or promises). These are not discrete components, with potential for duplication of attributes across the four (e.g. reliability is important for integrity and delivery), and considerable interaction across components (e.g. behaving with integrity is important for high quality service delivery). It is also important to understand that each of these components drive trust. If service delivery is not compliant with the trust characteristics deemed important to citizens, then trust is eroded. This could simply be a single characteristic (e.g. loyalty) or an accumulation of characteristics:

“Yeah I trust people whose values are reflected in what they do, and therefore someone who has a caring, and empathetic relationship, and understanding of people, and show that so that they’re not primarily based by their own selfish concerns, but the needs of other people, in a genuine way.” [FG7]

Table 3 outlines the key trust attributes identified by participants, within each of the four trust components for broad notions of trust, and for trust in government service delivery. Each component is described further below.

Integrity

Integrity is a broad component of trust that encompasses strong moral principles and the attributes that signify compliance with them. As described in Table 3, attributes of integrity are based on personal attributes such ‘gut-instinct’ and perceptions of body language, attributes closely related to service culture including values, honesty, respect, dignity, humility, trustworthiness, privacy (confidence/discretion) and actions, or governance related attributes such as genuine engagement, inclusion, transparency, accountability and communication. Across the integrity component is experience and reputation, demonstrating the importance of prior encounters of individuals and their networks in determining trust.

Table 3. Components of trust and their attributes

A large number of focus group participants identified integrity as being an essential attribute of trust, and often identified integrity as ‘following through on your word’:

“I’ve actually just got three words and that’s “integrity, honesty and transparency. … [Integrity] means doing what you say you’re going to do and following through and being true to your word. There’s a lot of promising in all families and communities and governments, a lot of promises that never get ---” [FG16]

“I’ve got integrity, they’re keeping their word, providing what they say they’re going to do, showing helpfulness and interest in whatever they’re showing you.” [FG6]

For some, the incongruence of service delivery (whether real or perceived) with their individual values is insurmountable, resulting in low ratings of trust for public services:

“Yes because of my experience and family experiences. Especially with the [Health service] and stuff lately, hearing about people and the problems and simply by staff struggling to get help for their children is just disgusting. There is no other word to put it really. People who need help should get help.” [FG12]

Empathy

Empathy was raised as being critical for trust in service delivery in all of the focus groups, and included attributes relating to the treatment of citizens including kindness, patience, listening etc. Empathy did not have to be felt personally however, with the treatment of others during service delivery also important in the determination of trust towards Australian public service delivery. Some participants noted that the local frontline staff are not empathetic:

“Oh it’s just the people that are in our office. Just some of them aren’t empathic. They actually remind me of psychopaths to be quite honest. There’s a couple of them, no feeling, no emotion, you could cry in front of them and you wouldn’t even get a “Oh dear, sorry” you know, pat on the back. They’re very cold. Like you’re another number to them.” [FG12]

“My mother-in-law, and my wife looks after her and [Health service agency] just terrible. They don’t see any empathy, their people don’t understand the issues even though they’re supposed to be empathetic. They just don’t seem to care what your problems are with the aged.” [FG8]

The general assumption that regional service delivery staff will be more empathetic when they know the community was found to be incorrect in at least one of the case communities:

“No, that’s not the case, definitely not the case. They’re still doing their job within the framework that they’ve been given. So you can’t -you know as much as it pisses you off, they’re doing their job. Some people aren’t touchy-feely emotional people and I guess we need to realise that as well.” [FG12]

Loyalty

Loyalty was a strong component of trust identified by focus group participants and directly related to notions of the Australian government’s responsibility to its citizens and equity of service delivery in terms of support for all Australian citizens:

“[I have trust when] the government shows it has an obligation to you as a citizen of the country and you feel that through every service that they do provide you. … You will feel that ok that is something that they should be doing anyway and you feel like they’re taking full responsibility for their obligation to take care of you as a citizen of the country.” [FG3]

However, citizens believe that there is a disconnection between government views of service users as customers or clients or sometimes consumers and the view of the majority of focus group participants that they are citizens:

“Actually, that’s a very good analogy. Australians are being treated as customers rather than citizens. Yes. I would say that is the point. What can we get out of you and how can we get it better, rather than, hang on, you’re the citizen, you put us here, what can we do for you?” [FG22]

Some participants felt that the loyalty value is eroding, due to government not delivering on equity and a perceived decline in the government’s commitment to caring for its people over recent years:

“Yeah, it's supposed to be a fair country, we're all supposed to get the same opportunities, that's what we boast about being Australian, Australian citizens, whatever, when it's in actual fact the exact opposite.” [FG18]

“When I came I really [had] trust in all the government policies, I trusted. I could tell that they really care about the people. They used to put people first. … but now I not sure about that anymore to be honest.” [FG17]

This notion of loyalty was also expressed by other participants, who identified that trust was ‘having your back’ and that the government should have the citizen’s back, particularly pensioners:

“[Trust is] The knowledge that someone will have your back. So a bit like a parent does for a child. And in regard to politicians, and our government, we should be able to trust that they are looking after the people in their charge, which is us, because they’re not in charge of us. They should be looking after the people in their charge and that’s us.” [FG15]

“Yeah, just living is more, the pensions are so limited and there's just so - you feel sorry for people who made Australia what it is, where they're being chastised by the system. I'm not looking forward to getting older in Australia anymore. You're lucky to survive.” [FG18]

Correlated with issues of integrity and values, the (mis)alignment of government service actions with participant values was a strong driver of trust in overall government service delivery, with one participant concerned with the government’s perceived mistreatment of vulnerable citizens which lets Australians down – a lack of loyalty:

“My personal view is that I'm happy to work and pay tax to support other people that are struggling to get work, I like to live in a country where if you can't get work you're not going to go hungry, you're not going to go homeless. So, I would like [Financial Service Agency] to provide a really great service basically to people that need it and God forbid, if I ever end up in that position I'd like the support. So it disturbs me to think that my perception of the Australian Government is that they treat people on welfare like they are just problems that should be gotten rid of and not as humans that need help. Again, I think the individual staff members that man the phones, I think from what I’ve heard from friends and family they're all quite good, but it's their management, their system, their structure that just lets them down and it lets so many every day Australians down. So that's what the one's for, yeah plenty of people end up with money in their bank account at the end of the fortnight but for most people it's not enough and the headaches that go along with it, it just sounds traumatic basically.” [FG14]

Delivery

Trust was inextricably linked to service delivery with all participants identifying that trust in Australian public service delivery is based on their delivery experience. For the delivery component of trust the attributes identified by focus group participants are typically descriptive based on service experience and associated institutional barriers (see Figure 2). Although the experiences of others within their social networks were also identified as important attributes (environmental barriers). For example, did they get an outcome (whether positive or negative) within an appropriate timeframe, was delivery transparent, was there consistency in service delivery (i.e. information, outcomes) (these attributes are considered in further detail in the following sections of the findings).

An important finding here was how participants understood and rated trust, which may contribute to understanding why regional citizens trust Australian public services less that their urban counterparts (further research is needed to verify this finding). For many regional participants there was a strong perception that trust is not implicit, that it is earned:

“I believe trust is earned. Someone needs to prove themselves of being trustworthy. And this can come about by being honest, being reliable, not breaking promises, and doing what you say you’re going to do, and sticking by you.” [FG31]

“I think trust is earned not given. I don’t expect to trust people on face value ever. As soon as I meet somebody, I instantly never trust them until I’ve got reasons to trust them.” [FG29]

“One thing about trust is as far as I’m concerned it’s always earned. So people earn my trust and they do that by demonstrating it in an active way so that I know that I’ve done something with them, told them something, acted with them in a way that I’ve felt like they had my back and I had theirs.” [FG30]

While a minority of participants were more open to granting initial trust, this could then be lost through poor experiences etc:

“I'm not saying they're perfect. I'm saying I trust them and that I have no reason to distrust them so basically, I think they do what they say they will do...” [FG14]

“I guess that comes back to the whole, you know, you’re taught from a young age that you can trust those departments. So even though you might get your trust knocked down, you know you’ve still got some form of trust in them, given that it might not be very much but it’s still there in some form.” [FG5]

“I never thought “could I trust this or can’t I trust this” because it’s got ‘.gov’ at the end of the website. I’m like this is the Australian Government – how could I not trust them…” [FG3]

“Well it goes back to the frustration you feel when you have to deal with them … just even the thought of calling them filled me with dread because it just took so long, so much of my time. It didn’t feel worth it. So it feels like if I, if they can’t deliver, why should I trust you?” [FG1]

Consistency was also raised in every focus group as an important driver of trust, as it guides expectations and when absent erodes trust:

“I think consistency’s really important because you’ve got to know what you’re going to get from someone. So if they’re always the same, you know how you’re going to get treated and how you’re going to be responded to, so consistency’s a big one.: [FG16]

“[Financial Support Service], for example, you can walk in there one day and go back eight times later and finally get it right, and yet next week you go on one day and they can get it right. [Health Support Service] the same.” [FG25]

“… the services are all there, if they worked properly, the people were well trained, which they aren’t because you can ring up once and ask a question, get an answer, you can ring up another day to verify it and you get a completely different answer. … Or you ring up three days in a row and get three different stories.” [FG33]

Trust in government service delivery is also heavily reliant on transparency and effective and genuine communication which places the citizen at the forefront:

“Transparency, so again, it’s being able to know where things are at. I originally had accountability. I changed it because accountability is one thing, saying yep we stuffed up, we didn’t get you what you wanted. Doesn’t necessarily put the onus on them to find me a resolution so telling me, you screwed up, still fix my problem. Transparency means at least I can see where it’s at and then I’m almost giving myself the power to do something about it.” [FG2]

“Communication, like adequate communication, and keeping me in the loop. Compassionate and understanding. So like thinking that they’re actually kind and caring and they’re doing it just for me, and they don’t have another call waiting after me, or they haven’t just dealt with a rude person just before me, like they genuinely care.” [FG19]

Through this communication people can gain a better understanding of government services, which in itself builds trust:

“[My low trust is] probably more I don’t understand what they’re doing. And when I don’t understand something, I don’t trust them. They’ll say, “You owe this because of these reasons”, and I don’t understand what they’re talking about.” [FG21]

Service outcome is an important determinant of trust, but it is not all that citizens base their trust on. How they are treated is also important:

“Experience … I‘d like to be able to hang up the phone and say “Gee that was pleasant – they gave me everything I wanted to know and I can go ahead and do this now”, that’s the only way I’m going to increase trust in them is if they give me what I’m after and I get an end result and walk away from the phone and say that was great.” [FG1]

“Just the personal satisfaction that you get with dealing with a particular department, which relates I think to customer service, how you’re treated and the outcome of the service that they’re providing to you. … [want] to be spoken to politely, to answer your questions clearly, and for them to give you information that you haven’t got in a clear and concise manner.” [FG19]

“And another thing is common courtesy. Whether or not it is a service you’re just going to see, whoever’s working for them, representing them, if it’s as simple as going into an office, opening a door, just little things like that make it more comfortable and easier for you to trust.” FG6

Follow-through was identified by the majority of participants as being an important indicator of trust, with follow-through relating to individual service delivery outcomes as well as broader social policies and programs which are often at the whims of government agendas:

“I think that there’s lots of issues that they try and tackle and it’s the bit here and a bit here that they try and work on. I don’t trust them to tackle one issue head on and put everything behind it. I think it’s gradual stuff that they change and get better, hopefully. Sometimes they get worse but so do I trust them to do everything? No, not really.” [FG36]

“Exactly right, where’s the story to say, “Oh look, they’ve actually done this for our family” you know or – there’s no evidence. It’s just like a ghost policy. You hear about it, but no one really knows the ins and outs of it.” [FG9]

“I mean, how can you trust a Government that clearly doesn’t have the people’s interests. I mean, they make promises, but you never see anything actually happen. So how on earth are we supposed to trust you when time and time and time and time again, “Oh, we’re going to do this, we’re going to do that” but it just doesn’t happen.” [FG9]

These four components of trust provide an overview of what are the important attributes of trust in public service delivery – with each component representing a micro-social contract that needs to be satisfied for trust to be granted. Each and every trust component is as important as the other due to the interactions between the components and the duplication of attributes across them. As such, the design and delivery of public services needs to be mindful of all four components at all times.