In this era of political cynicism, can better public services actually make a difference?

New polling from Public First shows that the public’s views on the quality of their local public services do reflect local realities, though it varies by the service.

We asked the British public to evaluate key public services, such as the NHS, schools, and police, and then determined if their perception of those services had any link with how relatively well (or badly) those services functioned in their local area. 

The public’s perceptions of the NHS is consistently correlated with how well the NHS is performing in their area. Using a variety of measures such as GP waiting times and access to NHS dentist appointments, we consistently found that those living in areas with better health services rated those services more positively, with the inverse being true for those living in poorly served communities. The public were particularly sensitive to local waiting times for GPs, which also correlated with overall perceptions of the NHS. These findings make it clear that people living in areas with either better or worse performing health services are aware of the quality of public service they’re receiving. 

The performance of local secondary schools correlates with the public’s perceptions of how well local schools are doing. However, this isn’t the case for primary schools. The public’s ratings of their local schools for younger children were not linked to the actual performance of those schools, but those living in counties with more passes at GCSEs and a greater number of ‘Good’ or ‘Outstanding’ schools rated their secondary schools more highly.

People who live in areas with higher crime rates accurately say that their areas have higher rates of crime. However, this did not affect how people felt about the performance of their local police force. Views on the effectiveness of the local police were not consistently linked with actual crime rates or rates of success cases in the local area.

This means that local delivery matters. Real, substantive improvements to public services should be reflected in how the public views them. Our analysis suggests that an additional 54,000 GP appointments with a waiting time a week or less each month could see Staffordshire and Stoke-on-Trent go from being the seventh happiest NHS Integrated Care Board (ICB) to reporting the same levels of satisfaction with access to doctor’s appointments as the most positive ICB in the country, Coventry and Warwickshire. While that kind of change might sound exaggerated, it illustrates the scale of improvement necessary in communities that have been under-served over the years and have absolutely taken note. 

Damayanti Chatterjee, Senior Economist at Public First said: 

“Our research shows that people’s opinions about the quality of local public services reflect local realities, particularly for the NHS. People judge healthcare based on how easily they can access key services, like GP appointments. This suggests that improving public services, in noticeable and meaningful ways where people interact with them, can reduce public cynicism about the government’s ability to make things better. Improving services, especially in the NHS, could be key for Starmer’s government to maintain a sense of post-election optimism.”

Our polling also showed that baseline public opinion on the quality of services varied depending on the service in question:

• A net 38% of respondents felt that their local primary schools were of ‘good’ quality, whilst a net 27% felt the same about their local secondary schools.
• The public were evenly divided with regards to police and crime, with 30% reporting that their local police force was of ‘good’ or ‘bad’ quality.
• However, respondents were more negative about the state of the NHS, 30% felt that their local NHS was ‘good’ whilst 41% felt that they were bad (net: -10.7%).

Read our technical note for a methodology and full results here.