Our Plans

The purpose of the Commission is to generate ideas and to prompt public discussion. I think everyone agrees that our democracy is in a mess; the point is to decide what we are going to do about it. There are lots of excellent organisations and individuals who are busy reviewing the way things work and some are coming up with detailed analyses. We have decided to do something a bit different: we are going to publish a series of 'options papers' with ideas for public debate and choice.

The Commission has limited resources and will probably only work for a couple of years. We are therefore going to have a narrow and specific focus and look at the structures of government. We want to examine how to constrain the power of the executive, which has become overwhelming. We want to improve public engagement and accountability.

Our papers will be short. There is already a body of evidence and research on which we can draw so there is no point in regurgitating it. We will be asking questions and posing a handful of solutions and then asking what would be the implications of each choice and which seems the most sensible.

We will look at the future. Our first paper on 24 May will be on the future of the head of state and then we will look at reform of parliament - I am particularly interested in developing parliamentary committees - and how democracy can engage more creatively with people at a local level.

The Commission is planning some face-to-face discussions with key thinkers, public consultation on our options papers and some online discussions.

There are lots of important issues we will not have the time or resources to cover, for example big tech, the courts, a written constitution, but there are other organisations who are considering these and we will liaise with them.

My hope is that we can prompt and promote public discussion. The country is facing so many challenges and we need to think about our future, what kind of country we want to be and how it is run. The Commission will contribute to the discussion and I invite you to get involved.