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This report provides results from the 2023 NILT Survey, conducted between September 2023 and January 2024. As this is the sixth year the PPS has commissioned a module in the Survey, comparisons with 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2023 findings are included.
The Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) Survey was launched by the University of Ulster and Queen’s University of Belfast in the autumn of 1998. Its mission is to monitor the attitudes and behaviour of people in Northern Ireland annually to provide a time-series and a public record of how attitudes and behaviour develop on a wide range of social policy issues. The survey is run on a modular format and aims to provide a local resource for use by the general public and a data source for public and academic debate.
A total of four questions specific to the PPS were included to gauge the following:
- Public awareness of the PPS (Question 1);
- Public perceptions of the PPS’s effectiveness in prosecuting people accused of committing a crime (Question 2);
- Public perceptions of the PPS’s fairness and impartiality (Question 3); and
- Public perceptions of the PPS’s independence (Question 4).
Question 1 was asked of all respondents. Questions 2, 3 and 4 relate only to those respondents who had heard of the PPS (i.e. respondents who had answered ‘yes’ at (Question 1).
Analysis of each of the PPS questions is available across ten key variables, as follows: Age-group, gender, religion, partnership status, limiting health condition/disability status, dependant status, employment status, qualification level, socio-economic classification and PPS Region. For the purposes of this report, the analysis has been limited to age, gender and religion. However, data in respect of any of the remaining variables can be provided on request.
It should be noted that the 2023 NILT Survey has produced a relatively high proportion of people who answered ‘don’t know’ in response to the questions. These ‘don’t knows’ have been excluded from the main body of the report. As such, the focus of the bulletin is on those people who have offered an opinion regarding the PPS. However, in the interests of transparency, the full results (including the ‘don’t know’ responses) have been set out in the second part of the bulletin and are available to download below.
Key findings
Q1 Had you heard of the Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland, ‘the PPS’? (Yes, No)
Of the respondents that were surveyed, 87.8% had heard of the PPS.
The age group 45-64 years old contained the largest proportion of respondents answering ‘yes’ to this question (95.5%), with those aged under 25 containing the lowest proportion (61.4%).
A greater proportion of male respondents (91.4%) than female respondents (84.4%) had heard of the PPS.
A similar proportion of Catholic respondents (89.6%) to Protestant respondents (87.5%) had heard of the PPS.
Q2 How confident are you that the Public Prosecution Service is effective at prosecuting people accused of committing a crime?
Just under half (45.8%) of all respondents were either very or fairly confident that the PPS is effective at prosecuting people accused of committing a crime. This compares with 54.2% who stated that they were either not very or not at all confident.
There was no significant difference between age groups with regard to confidence in the PPS’s effectiveness at prosecuting.
Similar proportions of male and female respondents (45.9% and 45.8% respectively) felt either very or fairly confident in the PPS’s effectiveness at prosecuting.
A similar proportion of Catholic respondents (45.4%) to Protestant respondents (48.2%) were either very or fairly confident that the PPS is effective at prosecuting people accused of committing a crime.
Q3 How confident are you that the Public Prosecution Service provides a fair and impartial prosecution service?
Just under three fifths (56.1%) of all respondents were either very or fairly confident that the PPS provides a fair and impartial prosecution service, while 43.9% were either not very or not at all confident.
Respondents aged 25-44 were less likely than the oldest age group to show confidence in the PPS’s fairness and impartiality, with 52% stating that they were either very or fairly confident, compared to 62.3% in the 65+ age group.
Similar proportions of male and female respondents (58.7% and 52.8% respectively) were either very or fairly confident in the PPS’s fairness and impartiality.
A greater proportion of Protestant respondents (62.2%) than Catholic respondents (51.2%) felt very or fairly confident in the PPS’s fairness and impartiality.
Q4 How confident are you that the Public Prosecution Service takes its prosecution decisions independently? (that is, independent of police, Government or any other body).
Just over half (54.9%) of all respondents were either very or fairly confident that the PPS takes its prosecution decisions independently, while 45.1% were either not very or not at all confident.
There was no significant difference between age groups with regard to confidence in the PPS’s independent decision taking.
Similar proportions of male and female respondents (55.3% and 54.3% respectively) were either very or fairly confident in the independence of the PPS’s decision taking.
A similar proportion of Protestant respondents (59.7%) to Catholic respondents (55.5%) stated they were very or fairly confident in the independence of the PPS’s decision taking.
Official Statistics
The statistics within this report are ‘Official Statistics’ as defined in Section 6 of the Statistics and Registration Services Act 2007. Statisticians from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency are seconded to the PPS and are responsible for ensuring that the statistics produced comply with the Code of Practice for Official Statistics.
Our statistical practice is regulated by the Office for Statistics Regulation (OSR). OSR sets the standards of trustworthiness, quality and value in the Code of Practice for Statistics that all producers of official statistics should adhere to. You are welcome to contact us directly with any comments about how we meet these standards. Alternatively, you can contact OSR by emailing regulation@statistics.gov.uk or via the OSR website.”
The NILTS survey
The NILTS survey can be accessed at the following link: