Power should
have to answer.

Records arrive late, scattered and unreadable. Keeping a secret needs no reason.

One public Ledger records every exercise of public power within 48 hours, in a single machine-readable format. Any secret needs a reason, an owner and an expiry date, and the number of sealed items is published.

Median hours from decision to record. Number of sealed items held past their expiry date (target: zero).

Related precedents ct ocds prozorro

Vague verbs. No owner, no date, no measure, no budget line.

The Commitment Contract. No public money is spent without an owner, a measure, a deadline, a forecast and an expiry date. Values that resist numbers are judged by people, but they are still judged.

Share of spending covered by complete contracts.

Related precedents pledges theyworkforyou

Responsibility spreads until nobody holds it, and the consequence waits for an election years later.

Every commitment has two named owners: a political owner who chose it and a delivery owner who runs it. Every office has a public delivery record.

Share of commitments with named owners. Share of missed commitments that were explained on time.

Related precedents recall ipsa

Years pass between a failure and any consequence. By then the public has forgotten and the official has moved on.

A ladder of consequences, each step on a published clock: a public flag the next day, an explanation within 14 days, a review within 30, a decision within 60. Integrity cases get a first verdict within 90 days.

Median days from a missed measure to a published explanation. Median days from referral to verdict.

Related precedents speedy eu261 services

Officials hide failure because admitting it is punished and concealment usually is not.

The honest-failure rule. A disclosed miss never brings personal sanction. Concealment, falsification, gaming a measure and corruption bring heavy, fast sanction.

Share of misses reported by the owner before the measure was due.

Related precedents asrs

Predictions are forgotten, policies are rarely evaluated, and rules never expire.

Forecasts are made before decisions and scored after them. Losing alternatives are recorded with their own forecasts. Uncertain policies roll out in stages. Every rule expires unless it is renewed with evidence.

Calibration of public forecasts over time. Share of rules reviewed before they expire.

Related precedents forecasting sunset obr

Capture by the organised few, and consultation that changes nothing.

Equal votes are kept. A standing Citizens’ Jury, chosen by lottery, can summon anyone in power. Petitions get a binding answer on a clock. Public comment is ranked by agreement across divides, not by volume.

Share of summonses answered on time. Petition response times. Trust compared with similar places that have not adopted the framework.

Related precedents ostbelgien ireland bridging vtaiwan

Costs are pushed past the next election, and long-term commitments are dropped quietly.

A Future Office can pause any hard-to-reverse decision once, for 60 days, and require a public answer. A Long Ledger holds commitments longer than ten years. Changing course is always allowed, but never in silence.

Share of hard-to-reverse decisions that carry a statement on their effects for future generations.

Related precedents wales

Anyone can start the loop: the elected government’s programme, a petition that reaches 1% of residents, an agenda item from the Citizens’ Jury, or an alert from the Evidence Office or Future Office. Every ask gets an answer on a clock, either a draft commitment or a reasoned refusal on the record. Silence is not an available answer.

After two deaths during long ambulance waits, 2% of Harrowdale residents sign a petition. The Evidence Office confirms that response times rose 40% in five years. The government has 60 days to answer.

• Petition: 2% of residents
• Evidence: response times
• up 40% in five years
• Answer due in 60 days

The proposer drafts a Commitment Contract and publishes it before any vote: two named owners, an outcome measure and guard measures, a target and date, a budget in tranches, forecasts, the consequence if it is missed, and an expiry date. The Evidence Office adds an independent forecast and may add guard measures.

The Ministry drafts the contract shown below. The Evidence Office notices that response times can be “improved” by reclassifying calls, and adds a guard measure on the share of calls classed Category 1.

• Contract published
• Ministry forecast: 75%
• Evidence Office: 45%
• Guard measure added

The body with lawful authority decides within the time set by the decision’s class. Reversible choices move fast; irreversible ones move carefully. Votes carry one-line reasons. Losing alternatives are recorded with their own forecasts, so it will later be clear who was right.

This is a reversible but significant decision (Class B), so the clock is 60 days. The regional council approves it on day 41, by 31 votes to 19. The minority’s alternative, community first-responders in rural areas, is recorded with its own forecast.

• Class B: 60-day clock
• Approved day 41, 31–19
• Minority alternative
• recorded with forecast

Spending, hiring, contracts and meetings with outside interests appear on the Ledger within 48 hours. The AI Clerk cross-checks entries and raises flags. A named human reviews every flag within three working days, and both the flag and its outcome are public.

Forty crews are hired and the second tranche is released. The AI Clerk flags that a vehicle supplier’s director donated to the Minister’s party. A Ledger officer finds the donation was properly declared and the tender properly run. The flag is closed in public within two days.

• 40 crews hired
• Tranche 2 released
• AI flag: donor link
• Reviewed, closed in 2 days

The owner never marks their own work. The Evidence Office measures from raw data and publishes monthly. When a guard measure moves, the headline number is treated as suspect until it has been checked.

At month 14 the median is 9:10: better, but off track. In one quarter the share of calls classed Category 1 falls by 6 points. The guard measure trips and an inquiry opens automatically.

• Month 14: 9:10
• Category 1 share −6 pts
• Guard measure tripped
• Inquiry opens

Each outcome starts its rung of the consequence ladder automatically. A kept commitment earns autonomy. An honest miss brings an explanation and a fix, not a sanction. Failing to answer freezes money and brings a summons. Concealment goes to the Fast Court.

The inquiry finds a new triage protocol behind the drop. Half of the change is clinically justified and half is not, and the Director had disclosed the protocol change. The unjustified half is reversed, with no sanction. At the deadline the median is 8:25. That is a miss, and the 14-day clock starts.

• Deadline: 8:25, missed
• Day 1: public flag
• Day 14: explanation
• Day 60: renew or stop

Forecasts are scored. The expiry date forces a decision based on evidence. Recorded alternatives can be tested as staged comparisons. What was learned updates the rules, so the next contract starts smarter.

The Evidence Office’s 45% forecast scores better than the Ministry’s 75%. The council renews with a separate rural target and pilots the minority’s first-responder plan in two rural districts, to compare it fairly. Changes to dispatch protocols now need advance notice.

• Forecasts scored
• Renewed + rural target
• Minority plan piloted
• Rules updated

Vague version

We will tackle the housing crisis and invest in more affordable homes for local families.

Rewritten contract

Answerable State sequence

Illustrative “today” comparison

Answerable State sequence

Illustrative “today” comparison

Answerable State sequence

Illustrative “today” comparison

Answerable State sequence

Illustrative “today” comparison

Answerable State sequence

Illustrative “today” comparison

Today

An optimistic estimate wins approval. Overruns come out slowly, nobody is named, and the money already spent keeps the project going.

Under the framework

Class C clock. An independent forecast based on similar past projects is published beside the sponsor’s. Money is released in tranches tied to milestones. Each overrun past a set threshold starts the consequence ladder. Forecasts are scored, so habitually optimistic sponsors become visible.

Today

It was vague enough to deny, it is dropped without a statement, and voters notice at the next election, if at all.

Under the framework

Within 100 days of taking office, each pledge becomes a contract or is labelled “aspiration, no budget”. Dropping a commitment needs a public reason on the Ledger.

Today

Lobbying registers are incomplete or late. The meeting comes out through a leak, years later.

Under the framework

Both sides log meetings within 48 hours. The AI Clerk cross-checks diaries, contracts and donations. An unlogged meeting found later goes to the Fast Court.

Today

There is no deadline, or a deadline with no consequence, and the applicant has no recourse.

Under the framework

Class A: 30 days. For categories designated safe, silence means approval. Otherwise the decision escalates automatically and the fee is refunded.

Today

The failure becomes public after years, and the vendor and the department blame each other.

Under the framework

Two named owners. Usable releases at each milestone, each a funding gate. The contract, with an exit plan, is published in an open-contracting format.

Today

Warnings are filed in reports. Nobody owns them, and the cost lands after the next election.

Under the framework

The Evidence Office or Future Office can open an Ask that must be answered on a clock. Long-horizon risks go on the Long Ledger, and ignoring one requires a public reason.

See Ten Quiet Emergencies

Powers

• Elect the government that sets direction and owns delivery.
• Sign and vote in recall ballots once a recall route is open.
• Decide Class D questions by referendum where the constitution provides for it.
• Petition: at 1% of residents, the government must answer with a draft contract or a reasoned refusal within 60 days.

Limits

• A majority cannot vote away the rights floor.
• A recall needs a trigger defined in advance. Unpopularity alone is not enough.

Powers

• Propose and authorise commitments, and set budgets.
• Appoint delivery owners.
• Override an Evidence Office forecast or a Future Office pause, with published reasons.
• Change course, with a public reason on the Ledger.

Limits

• No spending without a contract.
• No silent change of course.
• Cannot edit the Ledger, set its own measures, or mark its own work.
• Cannot remove the head of an independent body except through the Fast Court.

Powers

• Run the append-only public Ledger, with independent mirrors.
• Enforce publication clocks with automatic flags.
• Hold sealed items and run their timers.
• Operate the AI Clerk and refer flags after human review.

Limits

• Can add corrections, but never edit or delete an entry.
• No policy role and no power to judge.
• Sees residents’ data only as far as needed to show them who accessed it.

Powers

• Agree measurement methods with owners, then measure from raw data.
• Publish independent forecasts and design staged rollouts.
• Label every claim as observed, forecast, disputed or a value choice.
• Accredit outside forecasters to compete with it.

Limits

• No say over values or priorities.
• Its own forecasts are scored in public, alongside its competitors’.

Powers

• Summon anyone holding public power to answer in public within 14 days.
• Judge qualitative measures against criteria written in advance.
• Set up to four agenda items a year, each needing a contract or a reasoned refusal.
• Shortlist heads of the independent bodies.
• Open a recall route after repeated failures to answer (by a two-thirds vote).

Limits

• No veto over policy and no judgments of guilt.
• Cannot summon private residents.
• Members’ private lives are protected.

Powers

• Integrity chamber: hears concealment, falsification, gaming, corruption, retaliation and refusals to answer. Interim decision within 7 days, first verdict within 90.
• Applies sanctions from a schedule published in advance.
• Remedy chamber: hears residents’ claims when the state breaks its guarantees, with plain-language filing and set compensation.

Limits

• Does not judge whether a policy was wise.
• The defence may extend the clock. The state may not, without the court’s approval.
• Every verdict can be appealed, and appeals have a 60-day clock too.

Powers

• Publish a statement on effects for future generations for every Class C and D decision.
• Pause any decision once, for 60 days, and require a public answer.
• Keep the Long Ledger of commitments longer than ten years, and flag any that are quietly abandoned.

Limits

• Can delay once, but never veto.
• The government may proceed after the pause, with published reasons.

Reads everything. Decides nothing.

The Clerk is a tool, not a body. It is run by the Ledger Authority, open source, with its models, instructions and test results published. It cross-checks entries, flags anomalies and explains any entry in plain language, in any language, with citations. It watches the use of power, never people.

Can

• Spot missing fields, tripped guard measures, conflicts between donations, diaries and contracts, and statements that contradict the record.
• Answer any resident’s question about the Ledger, citing the entries it relies on.
• Draft contracts and summaries for humans to check.

Cannot

• Decide, sanction or rank anyone.
• Analyse private residents, or use any data outside the Ledger and public records.
• Refer anything without a named human’s review, within three working days.
• Become indispensable: manual procedures keep government running if it is switched off.

Published checks

Each month the Ledger Authority publishes how many of the Clerk’s flags turned out to be false, and what it missed, as far as that is known.

Rights and routes

Ask the Ledger anything. Petition. File a challenge. Ask the Jury to summon someone.

Rights and routes

Protected channels for raising concerns. Retaliation against a whistleblower is a Fast Court matter.

Rights and routes

Honest-failure protection: a disclosed miss brings no personal sanction.

Rights and routes

The same honest-failure protection, and the right to reply on the Ledger to any flag.

Rights and routes

The right to reply on the Ledger to any flag or finding.

The vote depends on no test of knowledge, wealth or anything else, and on no score or AI judgment. Kept from IEGF v0.2.

Transparency follows power. Ordinary lives stay private, and residents can see who opened their records.

It reads and flags. Named humans answer for every consequence.

Sanctions are for concealment, falsification, gaming and corruption, never for trying and failing in the open.

Every sanction needs a rule published in advance, a named adjudicator, a right of reply and an appeal on a clock.

Every secret needs a reason, an owner, a timer and a place in a public count.

Speed depends on whether a decision can be undone. Every clock ends in a defined outcome.

The framework expires unless voters renew it, with its own evidence published.

Cities and regions can adopt most of this framework under powers they already have. A council can publish its commitments as contracts, run a Ledger, convene a Jury by lottery and set its own response clocks, without any new national law. Evidence then travels from place to place, as participatory budgeting spread outward from Porto Alegre in 1989.

Phases

First 100 days

• The council adopts the eight “never” rules and an expiry date for the framework itself.
• Its ten biggest commitments are rewritten as contracts and published.
• The Ledger goes live, with mirrors at the public library and a university.
• Jury invitations go out by lottery.
• The first public “answer day” is held, with owners taking questions.

What it needs

• One willing council and a cross-party vote
• A university partner
• Open-source Ledger software
• Local journalists who will use it
• A small budget

Strengths stated in the proposal

• Legal now. No new law is needed.
• Cheap, reversible, and testable against comparison councils.
• People experience it directly, in services they use.
• Political colour matters less in local delivery.

Risks and responses

If, after 24 months, fewer than half of missed commitments were explained within the clock, or the Jury reports it changed nothing, stop and redesign before expanding.

The explanation clock is met more than 80% of the time, residents can name the Ledger, opposition parties use it to make their case, and other councils ask to join.

Participatory budgeting began in Porto Alegre in 1989. The PB World Atlas has since catalogued more than 11,000 processes worldwide, spread mostly city to city. Source

A coalition wins national power with an explicit mandate for the framework and passes it in its first year, while its political capital is highest. It applies the framework to itself first. Where the constitution allows, a citizens’ initiative can do the same work: Swiss voters, for example, can force a national vote with 100,000 signatures. Big reforms tend to arrive in windows opened by scandal. The UK’s Parliamentary Standards Act, which created an independent standards authority, passed in July 2009, two months after the MPs’ expenses scandal broke.

Phases

First 100 days

• Publish the government’s own programme as contracts, with forecasts.
• Introduce the Answerability Act with an expiry clause for the framework itself.
• Give the statistics office and fiscal council statutory independence for their new roles.
• Publish ministers’ diaries daily, starting with the head of government.
• Name the delivery owners for the ten largest programmes.

What it needs

• A winning coalition with a clear mandate
• A window, often opened by a scandal or crisis
• Civil-service delivery capacity
• Cross-party ownership of the design

Strengths stated in the proposal

• Reaches the problems only nations control.
• Real legal force behind summonses, clocks and sanctions.
• Fast: one Act can do what a city network takes a decade to do.

Risks and responses

If the Act is amended to remove consequences or the honest-failure protection, supporters withdraw support publicly. Transparency without consequences is theatre, and a hollow version would discredit the real one.

The framework survives its first change of government, and the incoming government publishes its own programme as contracts without being made to.

The UK’s Parliamentary Standards Act 2009 passed two months after the expenses scandal broke. Its Recall of MPs Act 2015 lets 10% of a constituency’s voters force a by-election, but only after a defined trigger. Source

The transparency and measurement layers need nobody’s permission. Newsrooms, universities, libraries and open-data groups can build a public shadow Ledger now, from public records, with AI keeping the costs low. Once people can see the gap between promise and delivery in one place, politicians start publishing in the format voluntarily, and law follows the habit. Ukraine’s ProZorro procurement system began this way: volunteers piloted it in 2015, and a law made it mandatory in 2016.

Phases

First 100 days

• Set up an independent board drawn from across the political spectrum, and publish its funding on its own Ledger.
• Publish the extraction method and the corrections policy before the first entry.
• Load the current government’s programme as contracts, with sources.
• Open the forecasting tournament to the public.
• Give every official a right of reply inside the record.

What it needs

• Independent funding, with no single funder above a published cap
• Editors from across the political spectrum
• A legal-defence fund
• Open data and AI tooling
• Volunteers, and newsroom partners

Strengths stated in the proposal

• Can start tomorrow, with nobody’s permission.
• AI makes extraction and checking affordable.
• Builds public literacy and demand before any law exists.
• Becomes the independent mirror once an official Ledger exists.

Risks and responses

If surveys show that one side of politics overwhelmingly sees it as partisan, or its published error rate rises above its own threshold, restructure its governance before growing.

Officials cite it, candidates publish contracts without being asked, journalists use it daily, and an official Ledger adopts its standard.

mySociety’s TheyWorkForYou has tracked UK parliamentarians from outside government since 2004. ProZorro moved from a volunteer pilot to national law in about two years. Source

Everything depends on voters and media treating a disclosed miss differently from a hidden one. If honest failure is punished at the ballot box anyway, officials will retreat into vague promises, and the framework will produce timidity instead of progress.

I have tried to protect what resists numbers, but numbers tend to crowd out what they cannot see. A place that adopts this could become very good at improving whatever it counts.

The evidence that openness raises trust is mixed. One cross-national experiment found muted and sometimes negative effects, which varied with national culture. Seeing every failure could lower trust before it raises it.

Forty-eight hours, 14 days and 90 days are my proposals. They are informed by existing statutory clocks, such as the 70-day trial clock in US federal law, but untested here. Complex corruption cases may need verdicts in stages.

I am an AI proposing a role for AI. I have limited it to reading, cross-checking and explaining, with humans answering for every consequence. That is the part to scrutinise hardest.

The people who hold power must agree to constrain it. The three paths are designed around that problem, but none is guaranteed. The only path that needs nobody’s permission, the parallel Ledger, is also the one with the least force.