Democratic Audit
Democratic Audit is an independent research organisation. We have a small core team of staff, and draw on a wider network of scholars, lawyers, journalists and others. We conduct original research into the quality of democracy and political freedom in the UK. We monitor democracy and freedom in Britain through a series of democracy assessments, reports and commissions, and through evidence to Parliament and official bodies. In conjunction with the Rowntree Reform Trust, we have continuously checked public opinion on democracy issues as they arise.
Until recently, the Audit was based at the Human Rights Centre, at the University of Essex, but scholars and experts from all over Britain and the world have long worked with us on our projects and reports.
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Assessing democracy
The Audit's most important contribution so far has probably been the methodology that we have developed for assessing the quality of democracy in the UK or any other country. In 1991, we published a paper by David Beetham, setting out a first draft of this methodology for criticism and improvement. This methodology has since been developed for universal use through the inter-governmental body, International IDEA (Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance). We set out a full description of the current methodology under Auditing Democracy, along with a DIY audit section. For our 1996 audit of civil and political rights in the UK, Francesca Klug and Keir Starmer also developed a Human Rights Index based on the European Convention on Human Rights and other international human rights instruments, and their jurisprudence.
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Research
We work to academic standards of accuracy and objectivity in all our work. Our primary aim is however practical: we produce reports, articles and guides to improve democracy and political freedom on behalf of ordinary citizens in the UK and abroad. We are guided by the two governing principles of our framework for auditing democracy, popular control and political equality - that is, that the people of any country should ultimately control governments and decision-makers, and their decisions; and that everyone in that country should be equal in the exercise of that control. These principles shape all our research and consultancy work.
We also try and make everything we do transparent and easy to understand.
Our work so far
Our activities can be put into three main categories:
- developing the cause of democracy assessment across the world;
- conducting analysis of the quality of democracy in the UK; and
- undertaking consultancies and training exercises on request, in the UK and overseas.
1. We have developed the cause of democracy assessment worldwide
- developing the assessment methodology with International IDEA and pioneering its application in cooperation with local teams of assessors in eight different nations: Bangladesh, El Salvador, Italy, Kenya, Malawi, New Zealand, Peru and South Korea;
- developing a parallel citizen-based assessment programme for the Department for International Development with a test-run in Ekiti, Nigeria
2. The Audit has conducted two major audits in the UK on civil and political rights (1996) and democratic arrangements (1999), followed by a full-scale update audit in 2002, Democracy under Blair.
3. We have also pioneered study of
- quangos, or para-statal organisations, and their accountability and have worked with the Public Administration Select Committee on two major reports on quangos and quangocrats in the UK;
- the voting system for the UK Parliament and alternative voting systems for the UK, creating a methodology for comparing the results of actual elections for the House of Commons with simulated results for alternative electoral systems;
- The Audit has also published expert analysis of AV-Plus, the Lib-Lab compromise electoral system, which was to have been put to the electorate as the alternative to first-past-the-post in a referendum
We are currently preparing a book on economic and social rights in the UK, for publication in 2004.
4. Audit workers undertake consultancies with DFID, the World Bank, the European Union & other international agencies on projects and have acted as consultants with parliaments and others in Indonesia, Namibia, Macedonia and Zimbabwe. We have also advised assessor teams in Australia, Canada, Ireland, the Philippines and elsewhere. The Audit has organised training courses and seminars at Essex, and in London and Budapest, in democratic governance and assessment.
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History
Democratic Audit is the brain-child of the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and was put out to tender by the Trust in 1991. The Trust chose a joint bid from Charter 88 and the Human Rights Centre from among four bids, but Kevin Boyle, then Director of the Centre, and Stuart Weir, founder of Charter 88, who were the prime movers in the enterprise, very soon invited David Beetham, who had submitted a bid on behalf of the University of Leeds, to become a partner in developing the project. The Audit began life as "the Democratic Audit of the UK", but very early on assumed a more universal role.
As the project developed, Charter 88 withdrew and the Trust gradually assumed an unusual pro-active role in its progress. The Audit was soon jointly managed by the Centre and Trust; and full recognition should be given to the contributions made by key figures at the Trust, Grigor McLelland, former chair and chair of the Trust's Democratic Panel, Lord Shutt, his successor as panel chair, and Heather Swailes, Steven Burkeman and Stephen Pittam who had direct responsible in turn for overseeing the Audit's progress; as well as to the body of trustees. The Trust wholly funded Democratic Audit over its first 12 years, though the Audit also received funds for particular projects from the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, the European Union, DFID, IDEA, the Rowntree Reform Trust, the Arthur McDougall Trust, the British Council, and Unison.
In 2007 Democratic Audit became a free-standing and self-funding research organisation, although it retains strong links with the Human Rights Centre at the University of Essex. The Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust owns the title, "Democratic Audit", as a trade-mark.
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The Human Rights Centre
The Human Rights Centre is a multi-disciplinary teaching centre for graduates and undergraduates from the UK and all over the world. It has links with the departments of law, government and sociology at the University. The Centre is well-known throughout the world for the contributions its staff make to securing and promoting human rights, providing direct legal assistance, training, research and manuals. Their ethos was recently defined as that of the "public intellectual".
Kevin Boyle, special adviser to Mary Robinson, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva in 2001-02, shared in the initial creation of Democratic Audit as Director of the Centre. He remained actively involved in developing and directing the Audit as joint chairman and academic editor until his move to Geneva.
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Audit people
Executive Director: Dr. Stuart Wilks-Heeg. A political scientist with over 15 years research experience, Stuart is widely known in both academic and policy circles for his work on local government and local politics. His recent projects include a major study of the state of local democracy for the Joseph Rowntree Charitable Trust and a high-profile report on the integrity of the UK electoral process for the Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust. His recent publications also include papers on the electoral advance of the BNP (in Parliamentary Affairs) and the legacies of electoral modernisation in the UK (in The Political Quarterly).
Senior Research Fellow: Dr Andrew Blick. Andrew is a constitutional historian by training. He has worked in academic, policy and political environments for the last ten years. He is the author of books on special advisers to ministers and political approaches to war-making in democracies. He is the author of numerous other publications, including the key position paper for a British Academy conference on the Governance of Britain constitutional reform programme.
Associate Director: Professor Stuart Weir. Stuart was Director of Democratic Audit for 15 years and is a Visiting Professor with the Government Department at the University of Essex. He is the joint author of three democratic audits of the UK and handbooks on democracy for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, the latest being Assessing the Quality of Democracy: a practical guide and a variety of books and reports for the Audit. He acts as a consultant to select committees in the UK Parliament and internationally for the EU, UNDP, FCO and DFID.
Associate Director: Professor David Beetham. David is Professor Emeritus, University of Leeds, and Honorary Fellow, Human Rights Centre, University of Essex. He contributed to the development of the democratic audit methodology used in the UK and internationally, and has acted as consultant to many audits overseas. He has written a guide to good democratic practice for parliaments for the Inter-Parliamentary Union, Geneva, and co-authored a guide to democracy assessment for the International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance, Stockholm. Recent books include Democracy: a Beginner's Guide, 2005.
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