Most police officers and staff in Britain’s biggest force do not have confidence in the leadership of Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe and his senior team, according to the force’s internal survey.

The poll of the Metropolitan police’s 47,000 officers and civilian staff also shows a majority doubt that the force provides a good service to the public but want it to do so.

Just one in five officers and staff agreed they had “confidence in the leadership provided by the senior leaders in the Met”, while three in five disagreed.

When asked to consider the statement “If I contacted the Met as a member of the public, I would be confident of receiving a good service”, 30% of respondents said they agreed and 48% disagreed.

The survey results pose challenges for Hogan-Howe, commissioner of the Met, and also for the home secretary, Theresa May, who has said police face further budget cuts. It also raises questions about the effectiveness of Boris Johnson’s Conservative administration in London, as the mayor has responsibility for policing in the capital.

Hogan-Howe has being trying to reform the Met, some would say radically, against a backdrop of cuts to police funding and reforms to the pay and conditions of officers.

The Guardian has learned the results of the survey dated April 2014, which provides further evidence about the effect of cuts on the public sector and on policing. The Met is one of the largest employers in London and the south-east and, unlike the NHS, is not protected from austerity measures.

The survey shows a workforce saying they want to provide the public with a top-class service but deeply fed up. Officers and civilian employees rate their own immediate team fairly well, but show little confidence in their senior leadership.

In positive survey findings, eight out of 10 say they and their team “take pride in delivering a quality service”, and 54% support the need for change in the Met.

Seven out of 10 say they are “treated with fairness and respect” within their team, and six out of 10 are clear about their team’s priorities. Half are satisfied with their current job, but a third are not.

Four out of 10 of the force feel motivated at work, while the same proportion do not. But nearly half disagree that there is a positive atmosphere among their colleagues, and just 20% believe the Met treats “all its people fairly”, and 63% believe it does not.

Officers feel gloomy about their prospects, with just 18% believing career development is fair, and 24% believe there are chances to develop their career within Britain’s biggest force.

The survey captures views from all levels of the Met, according to the report’s authors, with a response rate of 28%.

In an explanatory note introducing the survey, it says: “Against the backdrop of change, MPS staff remain committed to the values of ‘integrity, professionalism, courage and compassion’.”

It notes that most results are roughly the same as in a previous survey of the Met’s officers, two years earlier. Then, 21% said they had confidence in their senior leadership. That survey came months after Sir Paul Stephenson resigned as commissioner amid the fallout from the phone-hacking scandal.

John Tully, chair of the Met branch of the Police Federation, which represents rank and file officers, said: “The force is at crisis point. There is a lack of confidence in the very senior management … and that is very serious. Morale is through the floor.”

Tully said Hogan-Howe had pushed through changes and “dragged people kicking and screaming, and not taken people with him”. He said staff “feel denigrated by the government, especially the home secretary, and they do not feel supported by the very senior management, from Sir Bernard downwards.”

The Met police federation itself has been criticised for being reluctant to change.

Crime in London overall has fallen since Hogan-Howe became commissioner in 2011. As well as budget cuts he was faced with a force that performed less well in fighting crime compared with others in England and Wales.

The force has already made cuts worth more than £800m and is selling its Scotland Yard headquarters, as well as other buildings, to mitigate the need to shed jobs.

Last week Hogan-Howe said the Met faced 15% cuts to its budget by 2020, on top of 15% cuts since 2010.

The Met and Hogan-Howe feature in a BBC prime-time documentary starting on Monday which the force hopes will boost its image.

Hogan-Howe has the support of the Conservative administration that runs London and of the government, both of which have the final say about his future.

The previous two commissioners of the Met, Lord Blair and Stephenson, resigned mid-term. Hogan-Howe’s term expires in 2016.

The Met said: “The staff survey was done when officers had seen national changes to their terms and conditions of service and staff were seeing roles cut to meet our budget challenges. It’s inevitable that changes like these impact morale.

“What’s notable is that these results were in line with the previous survey done in 2012. Despite the huge extent of change, the perceptions of officers and staff stayed largely consistent when we would have expected them to worsen.”

