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This title examines the development of creative ideas, working out how to organize them, writing up from your plans, upgrading your text, and finishing your PhD thesis speedily and to a good standard. It also includes being examined and getting your work published

AbstractAn Institute for Government (IfG) report on 'government at the centre' recommends creating new, rationalist policy machinery (including an inner cabinet) to manage the UK government's four‐year policy programmes—faithfully following how the Cameron‐Clegg coalition operated in 2010–15. That government's disastrous example shows how politically naïve this plan would be. This article draws out its complete infeasibility in late 2024 conditions. The IfG also proposes setting up a new Department for the Civil Service headed by a powerful minister as a counterweight to the Treasury (criticised only for being 'too good' and hence over‐dominant). Instead, this article sets out the case for a new and strong Department for Finance, Procurement and Productivity to take responsibility for spending control and other key public management roles, where the Treasury resource management has conspicuously failed in the last decade.

Patrick Dunleavy establishes the wider context for liberal democracy globally, where prospects have generally been deteriorating in recent times. The factors that are currently going wrong for democratic advance across the world mostly have their counterparts in modernisation changes within Britain itself. This introduction then sets out how the Audit implements a detailed and disaggregated (section-by-section) analysis of the current performance of UK institutions. The final section considers the 'British political tradition', or the so-called 'Westminster system', which continues to define the almost unique political and institutional development of the UK.

Patrick Dunleavy examines a topic of foundational importance for any liberal democracy– how well does the electoral system (in this case the Westminster plurality rule, aka 'first-past-the-post') convert votes into seats? A sudden growth in two-party support in 2017 allowed the UK's ancient voting system to work far more proportionately. But is this outcome a one-off blip, or the start of a new long-term trend?

Patrick Dunleavy examines the proportional (PR) electoral system now used for smaller UK elections: the Northern Ireland Assembly, and Scottish and Northern Irish local councils. How has STV fared in converting votes into seats and fostering political legitimacy, under UK political conditions? An Annex also discusses the list PR system used to elect European Parliament MEPs from 1999 to 2014, but now discontinued as a result of Brexit.

Between elections, the interest group process (along with media and social media coverage) is a key way in which citizens can seek to communicate with their MPs and other representatives, and to influence government policy-makers. Patrick Dunleavy considers how far different social groups can gain access and influence decision-makers. How democratically does this key form of input politics operate? And how effectively are all UK citizens' interests considered?

Citizens and civil society have most contact with the administrative apparatus of the UK state, whose operations can powerfully condition life chances and experiences. Patrick Dunleavy considers the responsiveness of traditionally dominant civil service headquartered in Whitehall, and the wider administration of key public services, notably the NHS, policing and other administrations in England. Are public managers at all levels of the UK and England accountable enough to citizens, public opinion and elected representatives and legislatures? And how representative of, and in touch with, modern Britain are public bureaucracies?

Patrick Dunleavy and the democratic audit team examine how well citizens are represented by the two main reformed electoral systems used in the UK – the 'additional members system' (AMS) and the 'supplementary vote' (SV). How successful have they been in showing the way for more modern electoral systems to work well under British political conditions?