# **2.3 Subjective Assessments of Public Officials**

We used the public official’s survey to ask each official direct questions on the socio-economic conditions of the citizens they serve and on civil service rules that govern their workplace. Respondents had to answer based on their existing knowledge of their constituencies and workplace rather than by referring to external reference documents. The questions we asked are listed in Table A2 and relate to both district characteristics and civil service rules. Those relating to socio-economic characteristics of citizens correspond to the core variables of interest in the national ‘Growth and Transformation Plan’, and sectorspecific plans, such as the ‘Education Sector Development Program IV: 2010 - 2015’. Those relating to the public service correspond to the rules outlined in the ‘Ethiopian Federal Civil Servants Proclamation No. 515/2007’. Thus, all the variables we asked about are fundamental quantities relating to the core work of the public officials we interviewed. For example, the core mission of education officers is to implement the education sector development programs, focusing on the topics it prioritizes.

There are three sets of questions. The first set asks basic demographic questions about districts such as population and the proportion of the population that lives in rural areas. These questions are asked to respondents across all sectors. The second part asks sector-specific questions enumerated to sector-officials only. For example, respondents working in the education sector were asked the following questions about the citizens in their constituency: “What do you think the primary (1-8) enrolment numbers are for [district name] according to official administrative data?”; “What do you think the primary (1-8) pupil-teacher ratio is for [district name] according to official administrative data?”; “What do you think the primary (1-8) pupil-class ratio is for [district name] according to official administrative data?”; and, “What do you think the primary (1-8) pupils-per-school ratio is for [district name] according to official administrative data?”<sup>8</sup> The third set ask questions about the rules of employment of the civil service, such as the number of hours a public official is expected to work in a regular working week, the annual leave allowance in days in the first year of service, and so on. These are once again asked to all officials. All indicators asked about were continuous in nature.

Since the three tiers of government serve constituencies of differing sizes, we asked federal officials which region they knew best, and then asked them questions about the 25th, median and 75th percentile districts within that region by socio-economic indicator. Regional officials were asked about the corresponding 25th, median and 75th percentile districts within the region where they worked. District officials were asked about the local government in which they worked. Thus, all officials made statements about specific districts in their constituency, and in particular for the federal officials, those they stated they knew best.<sup>9</sup>

> 8District-level sector-specific information was not available for the Addis Ababa City Administration, Dire Dawa City Administration and Harar Regional Administration.

> 9The exact phrasing of questions depended on the tier at which the respondent worked. Within each indicator, fed-

10