What is the Opinion Leaders Panel?

Recognizing that a productive, efficient, innovative and creative public service is pivotal to the achievement of ‘developed country status’ by 2020 the Ministry of Public Administration and Information (MPAI) has been mandated to ensure that the public service is equipped with the requisite systems, skills, knowledge and capacity to provide the highest quality services possible to the citizens of Trinidad and Tobago.

Since 2002, the Ministry has embarked on a range of initiatives aimed at transforming the public service into a client focused and performance driven organization. A preliminary assessment suggested that the information base for decision making on service delivery was grossly inadequate, therefore the establishment of performance information systems should be assigned high priority. It was envisaged that a system for providing consistent feedback from a representative sample of the population on government service delivery (efficiency, effectiveness, equity, relevance), would give policy makers the necessary information to either modify their current service delivery approach or revise strategic objectives as required. Consequently, the Opinion Leaders Panel Survey was introduced as the lynch pin of the Ministry’s strategy to foster a system of performance based management in the public service

The MPAI engaged the services of the prestigious and widely respected UK-based Market and Opinion Research International (MORI) to work with the Public Sector Transformation Division of the Ministry, to develop and operate a mechanism for obtaining citizen feedback.

The Opinion Leaders Panel devised by MORI comprises 2,747 randomly selected individuals representative of the population of Trinidad and Tobago. These individuals constitute the ‘voice’ of all citizens as they contribute their opinions and feelings about government performance and public service delivery.

The Ministry of Public Administration and Information welcomes your feedback on the Opinion Leaders Panel and invites you to contact us with any queries, comments or suggestions.