Scottish Social Attitudes Survey 2023 - Attitudes to Government, the Economy, and the Health Service

Executive Summary

• In 2023, a condensed version of the Scottish Social Attitudes Survey (SSAS) Core Module was run to explore potential impacts of a change in methodology from face-to-face to a push-to-web survey.
• Overall, the mode change was not found to significantly have impacted the comparability of the 2023 findings with the long-running SSAS timeseries. For a full exploration of this mode change, please see the accompanying SSAS 2023 technical report.
• The 2023 SSAS ran from the 13^th September to the 31^st October 2023 and had a sample size of 1,574 people aged over 16 in Scotland.

Attitudes to government and the Scottish Parliament

• In 2023, 47% of people trusted the Scottish Government to work in Scotland’s best interests. This has decreased from 61% in 2019 and is now at its lowest level since the survey began.
• 21% of people said they trusted the UK Government to work in Scotland’s best long-term interests. This has increased from 15% in 2019 but has consistently remained lower than trust in the Scottish Government.
• Just over a third of people (35%) thought that the Scottish Government was good at listening to people’s views before taking decisions. This is a decrease from 51% in 2019.
• 12% of people thought that the UK Government was good at listening to people’s views before taking decisions, which has decreased from 15% in 2019 and has consistently remained lower than the Scottish Government figure.
• The percentage of people who thought that the Scottish Parliament gives ordinary people more say in how Scotland is governed has decreased from 56% in 2019 to 45% in 2023.
• 46% of people thought that the UK Government has the most influence over the way Scotland is run, compared to 43% who thought Scottish Government has the most influence. 61% of people thought Scottish Government ought to have the most influence over the way Scotland is run.

Priorities, standard of living, and the health service

• When asked to choose what the Scottish Government’s highest priority should be from a list of options, by far the most popular answer was to ‘improve the economy’. This has increased from 23% in 2019 to 42% in 2023.
• The majority of people (83%) thought the general standard of living had fallen over the previous year, which is an increase from 2019 when half of people (50%) thought the standard of living had fallen.
• 23% of people said they were satisfied with the way in which the NHS runs, compared to 52% who were dissatisfied. The NHS satisfaction level has fallen from 64% in 2019, and 2023 is the first year since 2005 where more people were dissatisfied than satisfied with the way the NHS runs.
• 69% of people thought the standard of the health service had fallen over the previous 12 months, which is an increase from 45% of people in 2019.

Tax, spending, and redistribution

• Almost half (47%) of respondents thought the government should increase taxes and spend more on health, education, and social benefits. This has decreased from 55% of people in 2019.
• Half of people (50%) agreed that Government should redistribute income from the better-off to those who are less well-off, while just under a quarter (23%) disagreed.