Overview
- A Forsa survey published by the Deutscher Beamtenbund on Thursday found only 17 percent of respondents trust the state to fulfil its tasks and 79 percent say the state is overburdened.
- The poll shows a shift in priorities with 26 percent naming social security and pensions as the top area of concern while only 16 percent now single out asylum and migration.
- A slim majority, 51 percent, say public-service performance has worsened compared with prior years, even though individual professions such as firefighters, nurses and police retain high public esteem.
- Respondents place blame on political leadership rather than frontline civil servants and list clear reform demands: 86 percent want simpler rules, 78 percent want shorter processing times and 72 percent want more online services.
- The survey of roughly 2,000 people follows a post-2020 decline from a pandemic peak in trust and has prompted dbb chief Volker Geyer to call the results a "catastrophe and a wake-up call" for the government to deliver concrete reforms.