FDA General Secretary Dave Penman writes on public faith in his latest Civil Service World column.

Looking back to his youth, where “the headlines always seemed to be filled with the names of steel mills or coal mines that were being closed, and with them communities destroyed”, Penman denies claims that politics has “never been more divisive”. “Are we at least more cynical, as many often suggest?” he asks, before looking at the recent Ipsos-Mori Veracity Index. 

He writes: “Politicians have never been trusted, it seems. Their score has remained almost constant and was 17% in 2017…Civil servants fare much better. Their profession is consistently on the rise in this Trust Top of the Pops, up 37 percentage points since 1983 at 62%. Despite everything that’s been thrown at the civil service over the last few years, the data shows the public inherently trust it as a profession.”