The CZSO continues to be highly trusted by the public
As emerged from an opinion poll of the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM) at the Institute of Sociology of the Czech Academy of Sciences, over three fifths of citizens of the Czech Republic (CR) aged 15+ years trust the Czech Statistical Office (CZSO) and consider its activity to be useful. Information published by the CZSO the respondents consider to be trustworthy, accurate, and impartial. Four fifths of the Czech population consider the CZSO to be a professional institution.
After three years, the Czech Statistical Office again ordered a survey (opinion poll) called Image of the Czech Statistical Office in View of the Czech Public. From the survey carried out in December 2013 it follows that the CZSO enjoys trust of 62% of citizens of the Czech Republic aged 15+ years while 12% of the population “definitely trusts” it and 50% of the population “rather trusts” it. 21% of the respondents consider the CZSO untrustworthy. The trust towards the CZSO increases with the level of educational attainment and with improving own evaluation of living standard of the respondent’s household. It is interesting that women trust the CZSO more than men (67% and 56%, respectively), while the answer “don’t know” was given almost with the same frequency by men and women.
Two thirds (66%) of the respondents stated that they “rather have a clue about” what the CZSO does, over one fifth (22%) thinks that they “know it exactly,” and 12% of the respondents answered that they “don’t know”. It further follows from the survey results that citizens of the CR most often connect the CZSO with the Population and Housing Census (95%) and with the population register (91%). Over three quarters (77%) of the respondents included processing of election results into the CZSO activities. Majority of the Czech population also relates the CZSO to monitoring and publishing data on the economic development. Furthermore, the respondents assume that the CZSO’s activities also include comparison of data on the development in the Czech Republic with international development and, last but not least, also publishing of surveyed data.
Almost three quarters (72%) of citizens of the Czech Republic aged 15+ years consider the CZSO to be a useful institution and only 16% consider it to be useless. Those who assume that they know what the CZSO deals with and also those who trust the CZSO are more persuaded that the CZSO is useful. The higher the educational attainment of the respondents is and the better their subjective evaluation of their living standard is, the better is also their perception of the CZSO as a useful institution.
The Czech public comes across products of the CZSO mostly in a passive way only, namely by means of news in the media (81%). When respondents search for information of the CZSO in an active manner on their own, they mostly do it via the Internet.
Since 2006, when the first one of many of these surveys (opinion polls) was carried out, the CZSO’s image in the public eye has been relatively stable and recorded changes have only slightly exceeded the statistical significance limit.
Analysed data were obtained by means of standardised interviews between an interviewer and a respondent based on a questionnaire. The survey (opinion poll) was performed from 2 to 9 December 2013; the number of respondents aged 15+ years was 957; quota marks were as follows: Region, size of the place of residence, sex, age, and educational attainment.
Trust and mistrust towards the CZSO in the context of assessment of other institutions (%)
Source: Final report from an opinion poll of the Public Opinion Research Centre (CVVM) called Image of the Czech Statistical Office in the View of the Czech Public – 2013 (Czech only)
