• About this study
• Our findings
• Our study details

Measuring perceptions of unfair treatment in the public services

Professionalism, respect, explanations, procedures and outcomes

This project looked at how perceptions of fair treatment by public services can best be measured. It included a literature review, focus group research on perceptions of unfairness and a review of existing survey questions. It found that the concept of fairness could be broken down into four key aspects and that questions to measure services should be designed to examine each of these aspects of fairness separately. Similarly the study recommended that measures will be most robust when specific public services are asked about separately. The research also engaged with the capabilities approach as a way to understand what public services should enable people to be capable of.
We reviewed existing measures and finds that although a number of surveys ask questions in this area, none are comprehensive.

The literature review findings are available here

The focus group research is available here

You can read a summary of the findings here.

Potential policy impact

The project developed two modules of questions: full and short. It explains the strengths and limitations of these sets of questions.
The full module is generally recommended as it is likely to collect more meaningful data.

Method

We were commissioned by the Government Equalities Office to review existing survey measures, carry out a literature review and run a set of 8 focus groups.

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Of interest: