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Publication - Research and analysis

Public attitudes to Coronavirus – June and early July summary

Published
5 August 2020
Directorate
Constitution Directorate
Topic
Coronavirus (COVID-19) in Scotland
ISBN
9781839609503

This report includes some high level findings from recent polling work on public attitudes to the coronavirus pandemic in Scotland. Reports covering earlier survey work were published on 8 May and 12 June 2020.

View supporting documents Supporting documents

4. Views on government and information sources

Rating of government

Respondents were asked how good or poor a job various institutions were doing to help their country deal with recovery following the pandemic. As shown in Figure 18, respondents continued to rate the NHS highly. The proportion rating the Scottish Government as doing a ‘good’ or ‘very good’ job fell at the beginning of June but has since increased slightly and stabilised.

Figure 18: Proportion who rate each as doing a good/very good job to help your country deal with recovering following the pandemic [12]
Figure 18: Proportion who rate each as doing a good/very good job to help your country deal with recovering following the pandemic

Source: Ipsos MORI, Scotland data. Scottish base (n=500)

Trust in Scottish Government

Respondents were asked to what extent they trust the Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests during the Coronavirus pandemic. As shown in Figure 19, three quarters of respondents reported either ‘a great deal’ or ‘quite a lot’ of trust in the Scottish Government, which has remained stable throughout June and July.

Figure 19: Whether respondents trust Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests during the Coronavirus pandemic
Figure 19: Whether respondents trust Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests during the Coronavirus pandemic

Source: Ipsos MORI, Scotland data. Scottish base (n=500)

Trust in Scottish Government advice and guidance

Respondents were asked whether they agreed or disagreed with statements about trust in government advice and guidance. Figure 20 shows that the majority agreed with each of these statements, and despite a dip towards the end of June (23-24), levels of agreement have overall remained fairly stable.

Figure 20: Proportions who agreed/strongly agreed with the two statements shown[13]
Figure 20: Proportions who agreed/strongly agreed with the two statements shown[13]

Source: YouGov weekly Scotland survey. Base (n=1004-1037)

Respondents were shown a list of information sources and asked about the degree with which they trust the source to deliver information on Coronavirus. As shown in Figure 21, the proportion who trusted the Scottish Government was consistently higher than the proportion who trusted the UK Government to deliver information about Coronavirus. Trust in information from the Scottish Government fell in early June but has since increased slightly and stabilised.

Figure 21: Proportion who completely or mostly trust each information source to deliver information on Coronavirus
Figure 21: Proportion who completely or mostly trust each information source to deliver information on Coronavirus

Source: Ipsos MORI, Scotland data. Scottish base (n=500)

Sources of information

Respondents were shown a list of information sources and asked which they use regularly to access information on coronavirus (i.e. at least three times a week). As shown in Figure 22, the most commonly used sources were the First Minister’s daily briefing and BBC TV News, although there has been a decrease in the proportion watching the First Minister’s briefing since the start of June.

Figure 22: Proportion using each information source regularly to access information on coronavirus
Figure 22: Proportion using each information source regularly to access information on coronavirus

Source: YouGov weekly Scotland survey. Base (n=1003-1048)

N.B PM’s daily briefing was removed for the 30 Jun-1 July wave but ‘PM briefings when they occur’ was added from 7-8 July wave onwards

Contact

Email: covid-19.behaviours@gov.scot

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