Scottish Household Survey 2025 findings: Trust in Public Institutions
Data from the Scottish Household Survey (2025) exploring trust in public institutions.
Trust in public institutions by urban-rural classification, 2025
The Scottish Government Urban Rural Classification provides a consistent way of defining urban and rural areas across Scotland. It enables analysis of data according to a two-fold urban-rural classification, and a six-fold urban-rural classification.
For the two-fold urban rural classification, adults living in ‘rural Scotland’ were less likely than adults living in ‘rest of Scotland’ (which includes urban areas) to trust the Scottish Government and Local Government. There was no difference in trust between adults living in ‘rural Scotland’ and ‘rest of Scotland’ for the other institutions (Table 7 below and Tables 8, 16, 24, 32, 40, 48 and 56 in the accompanying Excel workbook).
Table 7: Adults in rural Scotland expressed lower trust in the Scottish and Local Governments, but trust in other institutions was similar
Percentage of respondents who trust public institutions by two-fold Urban-Rural Classification, 2025, Scotland
|
Institution |
Rest of Scotland |
Rural Scotland |
||||
|
Trust |
Distrust |
Don’t know or not sure |
Trust |
Distrust |
Don’t know or not sure |
|
|
Scottish Government |
47% |
44% |
10% |
42% |
50% |
8% |
|
Local Government |
51% |
40% |
9% |
47% |
44% |
9% |
|
Civil Service |
56% |
22% |
22% |
55% |
25% |
20% |
|
Education System |
63% |
20% |
18% |
62% |
22% |
16% |
|
Health System |
74% |
24% |
2% |
75% |
23% |
3% |
|
Police |
74% |
20% |
7% |
73% |
19% |
8% |
|
Justice System |
59% |
25% |
16% |
57% |
27% |
16% |
For the six-fold urban-rural classification, differences in trust between adults living in different rural-urban classifications were less wide and showed fewer clear patterns than for other population characteristics (Table 8 below and Tables 9, 17, 25, 33, 41, 49 and 57 in the accompanying Excel workbook).
The difference between the most trusting and least trusting groups varied between five percentage points for the Education System and 12 percentage points for the Scottish Government. There was wider variation in trust for the Scottish Government, Local Government, Civil Service and the Police. There was less variation for the Education System, the Health System and the Justice System.
Adults living in large urban areas generally expressed higher levels of trust in the Scottish Government than adults living in other urban-rural classifications. Adults living in large urban areas also expressed higher levels of trust in the Civil Service than adults living in all other urban-rural classifications apart from adults living in ‘accessible rural’ areas, where the difference was not significant.
Table 8: Differences in trust across 6-fold urban-rural classifications were generally small, with few clear patterns
Percentage of respondents who trust public institutions by six-fold Urban-Rural Classification, 2025, Scotland
|
Institution |
Large urban |
Other urban |
Small accessible towns |
Small remote towns |
Accessible rural |
Remote rural |
|
|
Scottish Government |
51% |
45% |
42% |
39% |
41% |
42% |
|
|
Local Government |
52% |
49% |
49% |
48% |
49% |
44% |
|
|
Civil Service |
60% |
53% |
51% |
52% |
57% |
50% |
|
|
Education System |
63% |
61% |
65% |
64% |
62% |
60% |
|
|
Health System |
75% |
73% |
70% |
74% |
76% |
72% |
|
|
Police |
74% |
74% |
76% |
67% |
75% |
68% |
|
|
Justice System |
59% |
59% |
59% |
54% |
59% |
53% |
|
Contact
For enquiries about this publication please contact:
Office of the Chief Statistician
e-mail: statistics.enquiries@gov.scot