Kiwis have more confidence in the police than their GPs, for the first time in a decade.

UMR Research has been tracking the level of confidence in our institutions since 2001. More than 70 per cent have faith in police officers - up 19 per cent since 2005.

And in a survey of our government departments the Fire Service comes out on top where it has been every year since it was included in 2004.

In the institutions ratings the police force overtook medics who were down 1 per cent from 2010 to 67 per cent. Parliament rated the lowest just behind big business and unions.

Primary schools take the third spot (up 5 to 64 per cent), followed by the military (up 7 to 61 per cent).

Universities rose (up 2 to 60 per cent), as did secondary schools (up 4 to 51 per cent).

Confidence in small business was dwindling - it fell from 3rd to 7th place since 2006.

The polling agency also tracked the performance ratings of a number of government agencies.

While the Fire Service scored a 90 per cent rating, this was down four per cent on the previous year.

The rankings showed public confidence in those agencies had mostly been dropping since 2009 as a round of state service cuts kicked in.

The National Library came out second - with more than half rating its performance positively, but it was three per cent on 2010. Corrections, MSD, Te Puni Kokiri, Defence, Justice, DOC and MAF all saw a drop.

However, the health ministry moved into third place, up three per cent to 51. And the biggest mover was ACC, which has recovered from just 29 per cent positive in 2009 to 38 per cent in the latest survey.

OCCUPATIONAL RESPECT

UMR Research have also rated respect for occupations out of 10.

NURSES 8.6/10

DOCTORS 8.3

TEACHERS 8

POLICE 7.9

DAIRY FARMERS 6.8

BUILDERS 6.8

CHEFS 6.6

PUBLIC SERVANTS 6.2

BUSINESS LEADERS 5.9

LAWYERS 5.6

BANKERS 5.3

POLITICIANS 4.6

SHAREBROKERS 4.2

INVESTMENT BANKERS 4.2

REAL ESTATE AGENTS 4.1

* The report is based on UMR's Omnibus surveys taken between 1991 and 2011. The poll was a nationwide telephone survey of 750 New Zealanders. The margin of error for a 50 per cent figure at the 95 per cent confidence interval is +/- 3.6 per cent.

- © Fairfax NZ News