Best questions for civil servant survey about cost of living concerns

Here are some of the best questions for a civil servant survey about cost of living concerns, plus tips for creating high-quality survey questions. If you want to build your own survey fast, you can use Specific to generate a survey in seconds with AI.

Best open-ended questions for civil servant cost of living surveys

Open-ended questions are great for capturing nuanced stories and hearing specific, real-world impacts. They're especially valuable when you need deeper insight into how cost of living affects civil servants—you get more than just “yes” or “no.” These questions spark honest conversation and surface hidden pain points.

This matters, because according to the Public and Commercial Services Union (PCS), 8% of UK civil servants had to use food banks and 35% skipped meals due to financial constraints in 2022. Even more striking, 85% said the cost-of-living crisis was negatively impacting their physical or mental health. [1]

1. Can you describe how recent changes in the cost of living have affected your daily life as a civil servant?

2. What kinds of sacrifices or adjustments have you made because of rising expenses?

3. How has your approach to budgeting or saving changed in the past year?

4. What aspects of your well-being have been most affected by financial pressures?

5. Do you feel current wages meet your basic needs? Please explain.

6. Can you share an example of an unexpected expense that posed a significant challenge recently?

7. How do financial concerns impact your work performance or motivation?

8. What resources or support could help you ease cost of living pressures?

9. Have you had to seek outside assistance (like loans, second jobs, or food banks)? What was that experience like?

10. In your opinion, what changes (from the employer or government) would most help civil servants right now?

Top single-select multiple-choice questions for civil servant cost of living surveys

Single-select multiple-choice questions are useful when you want to quantify key trends or open up a conversation with an easy starting point. Sometimes people need that spark—a few options can be less intimidating and speed up the process, while you dig deeper with follow-ups.

Question: In the past six months, which expense has increased the most for you?

• Housing (rent/mortgage)

• Utilities

• Groceries

• Transportation

• Healthcare

• Other

Question: How often do you worry about being able to meet your basic living expenses?

• Daily

• Weekly

• Monthly

• Rarely

• Never

Question: To what extent do you feel your current salary is sufficient to cover your living costs?

• Much more than enough

• Slightly more than enough

• Just enough

• Not enough

When to follow up with "why?" Any time you get a strong answer—like “not enough” or “daily”—a smart follow-up can reveal the real story. For example, after “How often do you worry about being able to meet your basic living expenses?” and the choice is “Daily,” a good follow-up is: “Can you tell us more about what drives this daily concern for you?” This is where conversational surveys shine.

When and why to add the "Other" choice? Sometimes people’s experiences don’t fit neatly into your options. Including “Other” lets respondents share something unexpected. These open-text answers can expose issues you never considered—so always follow up, for example, “Please describe what ‘Other’ means for you.”

Should you include an NPS-style question?

NPS (Net Promoter Score) isn’t just for products or brands—it’s surprisingly effective with cost of living surveys, too. For civil servants, you can use an NPS question to measure their likelihood to recommend a career in civil service given current cost-of-living pressures. This gives you a clear metric and lets you segment promoters and detractors for targeted follow-up. It’s easy to set up an NPS survey for civil servant cost of living concerns with Specific.

The power of follow-up questions

Automated AI follow-up questions are a game changer for civil servant surveys. The magic is in the context: when someone says, “I’ve had to cut back,” Specific’s AI probes for specifics—“What did you cut back on?”—uncovering details standard forms miss.

• Civil servant: “Groceries have become unaffordable.”

• AI follow-up: “Which grocery items are you cutting back on most, and how is this affecting your meals?”

If you stop without a follow-up, you end up with unclear responses that are hard to interpret later. You might have open text replies like, “It’s tough,” but without those extra details, you’re left guessing.

How many followups to ask? Generally, asking 2–3 follow-up questions is the sweet spot. You want enough detail to understand, but not so many questions that respondents feel overwhelmed. Specific lets you set a max, or skip once you have enough detail—so you stay conversational, not relentless.

This makes it a conversational survey: Each answer can lead to an organic “what else?” or “tell me more,” so the experience feels like a real conversation—much lighter than a long static form.

AI survey response analysis: Even if you collect a ton of open-ended responses, analyzing responses with AI is fast. AI can summarize, highlight common themes, and even chat with you about the data.

These automated follow-ups are a new concept for many—give it a try by generating a conversational survey for civil servants and see how it changes feedback quality.

How to write a GPT prompt for civil servant cost of living questions

AI works best when you give it clear context. Try this first—simple and direct:

Suggest 10 open-ended questions for Civil Servant survey about Cost Of Living Concerns.

But you’ll get far richer results if you add more about your goals or situation. Here’s a better approach:

Our organization wants to improve well-being of civil servants. Suggest 10 open-ended questions for a civil servant survey about cost of living concerns, focusing on financial impact, work performance, and helpful policies. Make sure questions encourage honest sharing and diverse perspectives.

Once you have draft questions, ask for structure:

Look at the questions and categorize them. Output categories with the questions under them.

Then, go deeper on categories that matter most:

Generate 10 questions for categories: Work performance, Support systems, Policy changes.

Iterate until you hone the perfect question set—Specific’s AI survey editor makes tweaking easy, too.

What is a conversational survey?

Conversational surveys feel like a chat, not paperwork. Instead of giving static lists, the AI reacts in real time, takes clues from answers, and dives deeper when needed. This approach improves response rates and the honesty of what you get back—respondents don’t feel interrogated; they feel heard.

Here’s a quick comparison:

With an AI survey generator like Specific, you set up smart, adaptive surveys in seconds. The platform is designed for feedback and insight—not just number crunching. See the step-by-step on how to create a survey for civil servants about cost of living if you want to go deeper.

Why use AI for civil servant surveys? Cost of living is complex and emotional—manual surveys miss details and context. With AI-powered conversation, you hear concerns in the respondent’s own words and can instantly probe until you get actionable insights.

Looking for an AI survey example that mixes best-in-class user experience and conversational flows? Specific is built for exactly this—it makes feedback frictionless and engaging, both for you and your civil servant respondents.

See this cost of living concerns survey example now

Get deep, actionable insights with an AI-powered conversational survey—see firsthand how fast, easy, and meaningful feedback can be!