The Power Commission was established to discover what is happening to our democracy. It sought to establish why people were disengaging from formal democratic politics in Britain and how these trends could be reversed. The commission of 10 people developed a set of proposals and recommendations to increase and deepen political participation, which were presented in a final report - Power to the People - published in February 2006. The report is based on primary and secondary research, and, crucially, evidence submitted by the public themselves.
The Final Report
Executive Summary
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The Full Report (This file is 1.6MB)
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Individual Chapters
Part One: The Disconnect
1. The Myth of Apathy
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2. Red Herrings
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3. The Reality
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4. The Rise of New Citizens
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Part Two: The Response
5. Rebalancing Power
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6. Real Parties and True Elections
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7. Downloading Power
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Research undertaken for the Commission
Beyond the Ballot - 57 democratic innovations from around the world
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This report, wriiten by Dr Graham smith, collates, describes, assesses and draws lessons from innovations in democratic participation from around the world.
The Citizens' Panel
A panel of thirty citizens met alongside the POWER Commission to discuss the Inquiry's evidence, consider its recommendations and develop recommendations of its own. The panel was randomly selected from the population of Newcastle-Gateshead
Exploring attitudes to politics and political participation
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Exploring attitudes to elections and political actors
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Assessing recommendations for change
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Local Activism Project
The local activism project’s central focus was to explore what political and community activists think of their local parties and local party activists. It also looked at whether and how local parties could forge links with or attract such individuals.The work was based on three workshops - in Birmingham, Glasow and Somerset. The workshops involved people active in parties, active in politics but not parties, and active in their communities but in a non-political context. One of the workshops recruited exclusively from within black and minority ethnic communities.
This project was funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation.
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Evidence submittted to the Commission
All of the evidence generated by the Inquiry was presented to the Commission in eight ‘Theme Books’. These summarised and collated the evidence under thematic headings. The research interviews in the Theme Books were edited and proofed to ensure they were more readable for the Commission. However, they still bear a close resemblance to their verbatim form. A small number of those who gave evidence to the Inquiry asked for their evidence to remain ‘off the record’.
Theme Book 8 collated all the evidence that was submitted in a non-digital format and as such cannot be included here.
You can view the Theme Books in PDF format using the links below.
Evidence submitted on elections
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Evidence submitted on political parties
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Evidence submitted on the media
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Evidence submitted on marginalised groups
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Evidence submitted on campaign groups
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Evidence submitted on the executive and parliament
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Evidence submitted on local democracy
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