Scottish Household Survey 2025 findings: Trust in Public Institutions

Trust in public institutions by ethnicity, 2025

In the analysis below the following categories for ethnicity are used:

• ‘White – Scottish’ and ‘White – Other British’.
• ‘White: Other’ which includes Irish, Gypsy/Traveller, Polish and other white ethnic groups.
• ‘Minority ethnic groups’ which includes mixed or multiple ethnic groups, Asian, African, Caribbean or Black, Arab or any other ethnic groups.

‘Minority ethnic groups’ expressed the highest – or comparably high – levels of trust for every institution compared with other ethnic groups, apart from the Justice System. ‘Minority ethnic groups’ also expressed the lowest – or comparably low – levels of distrust for every institution (Table 6 below and Tables 5, 13, 21, 29, 37, 45 and 53 in the accompanying Excel workbook), which was also the case in 2023.

They were more likely than any other group to say that they didn’t know or were not sure whether they trusted the Scottish Government, Local Government, the Civil Service or the Justice System.

‘White – Scottish’ people were generally less trusting than other ethnic groups, expressing the lowest levels of trust for four out of the seven institutions (the Scottish Government, Local Government, the Civil Service and the Justice System), and comparably low levels of trust for the other three.

The gap between the ethnic groups expressing the most and least trust was widest for the Scottish Government where 42% of ‘White – Scottish’ said they trusted it, compared with 65% of people in ‘minority ethnic groups’. For local government, the gap was also large, with 47% of ‘White – Scottish’ people saying they trusted it, compared with 67% of people in ‘minority ethnic groups’.

The Police and the Justice System were the institutions for which there was least variation in trust between people from different ethnic groups.

Table 6: Minority ethnic groups reported the highest or comparably high levels of trust and the lowest or comparably low levels of distrust across most institutions

Percentage of respondents who trust and distrust public institutions by ethnicity, 2025, Scotland