The Guam Ethics Commission has launched an effort to establish a baseline for public trust in the Government of Guam, which the Commission’s Executive Director said is tied to fiscal responsibility, transparency, accountability and customer service.
Guam Ethic Commission Executive Director Nico Fujikawa said the Guam Public Trust Index (GPTI) initiative was born after the commission conducted an internal review on what the commission provides the community.
“I realized that this is something that we’re missing. There’s so many reports out there, so many things we’ve seen in the news. There’s a lot on comment sections and all these different outlets that really show either -people’s distrust or their support for certain things that the government does,” Fujikawa said of the driver behind the study on Guam’s sentiment on government institutions.
The Guam Public Trust Index turns that public perception into a tool for improving government service and enhancing public trust in GovGuam by creating a baseline.
“It is a big project. It’s an exciting project, but it is a very big task because we have over 60 government agencies. And to try and survey every single one in one shot is a pretty big ask, right? So what we’re doing for this first baseline study is honing in on who the sample size we’re looking at about a thousand of them, who are the most interactive with government agencies,” he said.
Th GPTI survey asks the respondent to narrow down their review of GovGuam agencies to the top 10 or 15 that they interacted with or engaged the most to establish the index for public trust in that agency.