The Committee on Standards in Public Life has just published its annual survey on public attitudes to politicians (aka The Porkies Report).

Iain Dale posted briefly on it so I thought I'd flick through its 130 pages (hey, we take a bit of pride in our research here).

Beyond the blah blah politicians are all liars blah blah there some interesting nuggets for local authorities.

What professionals do people trust to tell them the truth? 94% said family GPS and just 10% said tabloid journalists (that's actually an improvement).

Sitting in the middle with 45% were local councillors but only 35% thought senior local council officers would be truthful. They were just ahead of MPs generally and government ministers.

It's a rather brutal return.

A more in-depth analysis shows only about one in ten people don't trust their local councillor or senior officers at all.

The report says: "Frontline professionals with whom the public has more direct contact, such as family doctors, head teachers, judges and local police officers, are more trusted to tell the truth than other types of public officials."

Well I'm not sure how many judges you get to meet but I take the point that personal contact makes a difference. That probably explains why people gave a relatively high trust rating to their own MP while scoring MPs generally on the low side.

So is the answer for officers to get out and press the flesh a bit more?

Incidentally: 70% of those polled said they never used web sites which focused on politics and just 4% used them 'often'. Yeah, but we're a vocal 4%.

You can download your own copy here.