Britain invests the smallest share of GDP in the G7.

Provisional single-reviewer assessments from the 6 October 2026 review; not approved business cases, and not government policy.

• Steady public investment through a published pipeline▲Delivery RAG: Amber

  Funded now

  Already government policy: the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy (June 2025) commits at least £725bn over a decade and launched an online Infrastructure Pipeline in July 2025, updated at least every six months. UK Facts’ addition is to separate approved from aspirational projects on the page and to count completed, used assets rather than announcements.

  The change assessed

  Approved-versus-aspirational status, milestones and completed assets in the infrastructure pipeline.

  Range if completed: 15.0–21.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

• City-region growth powers■Delivery RAG: Red

  Funded now

  Not yet stated in the record.

  The change assessed

  Not yet defined.

  Range if completed: 8.0–17.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

• Transport access to jobs▲Delivery RAG: Amber

  Funded now

  Funded baseline: the Local Authority Bus Grant (£510.8m revenue in 2026–27 including a £30m uplift) and a £2 single-fare cap outside London for 2027 (£400m for England, announced 22 July 2026). Appraising one corridor for access to jobs, with a comparison, is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy.

  The change assessed

  Appraise one defined corridor/service intervention where journey reliability, hours or cost constrain access to jobs.

  Range if completed: 14.0–20.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

Alternatives already on record: 42 options listed under the points in the position today (30 without an action record), and 3 earlier options under other options compared. They have not been scored in the review.

Which quadrant a point sits in is our analytical judgement, not a statistical category. Each point says whether it is a measured fact, our synthesis or a risk.

Provisional single-reviewer assessments from the 6 October 2026 review; not approved business cases, and not government policy.

• A03▲Delivery RAG: AmberGate: pending

  Steady public investment through a published pipeline

  Existing action A03, assessed at the same scope.

  Provisional single-reviewer assessment; not an approved business case.

  Who and where

  Users of transport, energy, water, digital and public-service infrastructure across the UK; construction firms and their workforce. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: UK.

  Result so far

  Range if completed: 15.0–21.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

  Funded now (baseline)

  Already government policy: the 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy (June 2025) commits at least £725bn over a decade and launched an online Infrastructure Pipeline in July 2025, updated at least every six months. UK Facts’ addition is to separate approved from aspirational projects on the page and to count completed, used assets rather than announcements. (from the action record)

  The change assessed (marginal)

  Approved-versus-aspirational status, milestones and completed assets in the infrastructure pipeline. (from the superseded 4 October selection table)

  • Domain home: Growth & productivity
  • In the national plan: Growth and prosperity list
  • Previous version: NP5: Publish what is ready to build — projects and housing sites — with each blocker’s owner and cost (4 October 2026 slate, superseded 7 October 2026).

  What the evidence supports—and the next decision

  A pipeline makes intended investment visible; it does not make every listed project approved, affordable or deliverable.

  Codex — AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.

  Define the change

  Publish approval status, milestones, whole-life cost and delivery confidence for a defined portfolio, alongside the existing pipeline.

  Test whether it works

  Compare forecast and actual completion, service availability and cost at successive decision points. Record cancelled projects and changed scope rather than dropping them from the denominator.

  Establish the cost

  Appraise projects individually with maintenance, renewal, optimism bias and opportunity cost. Keep the small cost of better portfolio information separate from the assets themselves.

  Protect against harm

  Do not promise simultaneous delivery beyond shared construction, grid or specialist capacity.

  • NISTA: March 2026 pipeline update →

  Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.

  Full assessment of Steady public investment through a published pipeline: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring

  The ten criteria (0–3)

  Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.

  1. Scale and severity (Sc)3 of 3 — Severe harm across a broad population

     Reviewer’s reason: Provisional problem-importance judgement from linked site pages; not the scale of achievable benefit.

  2. Increment beyond baseline (Ad)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery

     Reviewer’s reason: Distinguish funded projects from aspirations; sequence resources; name owners and independent assurance; protect maintenance. A missing rating requires a defined marginal change.

  3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)1 of 3 — Indirect, mixed, modelled or weak causal support

     Reviewer’s reason: Macro modelling and delivery audits support the rationale; they do not evaluate the incremental publication or coordination change.

  4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed

     Reviewer’s reason: Unknown unless a reasonably defined target-population benefit can be judged; no bonus merely for spanning domains.

  5. Residual harms (Hm)2 of 3 — Manageable harm with specified safeguards

     Reviewer’s reason: Double-counting housing/grid benefits; shared workforce bottlenecks.

  6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

     Reviewer’s reason: Project lifetime costs, optimism bias, maintenance, financing and the coordination team. The headline strategy is an overlapping envelope.

  7. Delivery capacity (Ca)1 of 3 — Binding scarce resource

     Reviewer’s reason: Distinguish funded projects from aspirations; sequence resources; name owners and independent assurance; protect maintenance.

  8. Distribution (Fa)2 of 3 — Mixed or broadly neutral with safeguards

     Reviewer’s reason: Provisional distribution judgement for the stated target; verify who pays, who gains and excluded groups.

  9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)2 of 3 — More than one and up to three years

     Reviewer’s reason: First meaningful outcome, not announcement: Milestones, outturn cost and service outcomes for selected projects.

  10. Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step

      Reviewer’s reason: Treasury, infrastructure bodies, departments and devolved governments; Project appraisal and sequencing

  Four weightings

  Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.

  • Equal weights: Range if completed: 15.0–21.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 14.5–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 16.4–21.8 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 16.7–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.

  Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.

  Delivery RAG and gate

  ▲Delivery RAG shown: AmberReview’s claim: Amber. Best the recorded evidence allows: Amber.

  Review’s reason: Project lifetime costs, optimism bias, maintenance, financing and the coordination team. The headline strategy is an overlapping envelope.

  Why it is not Green yet

  • Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
  • No verified owner with the powers in place.
  • Delivery capacity not verified.
  • Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
  • No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
  • Safeguards not specified.
  • Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.

  Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.

  Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending: incomplete appraisal”).

  Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).

  The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.

  Cost and funding

  Lifetime costing: Partial — some lines costed, no whole-life total. Review: “Full incremental costing not established in reviewed material”.

  • 10 Year Infrastructure Strategy: government infrastructure funding (programme envelope) (published programme envelope; C-10YIS-ENVELOPE)
  • Project capital, maintenance, financing and workforce costs for pipeline projects (not costed; C-A03-PROJECTS)

  Still to cost: Project lifetime costs, optimism bias, maintenance, financing and the coordination team. The headline strategy is an overlapping envelope.

  Funding status: programme route, not allocated.

  Owner, powers and capacity

  Proposed owner: Treasury, infrastructure bodies, departments and devolved governments (proposed, unverified).

  Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: binding constraint.

  Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).

  England:

  HM Treasury and NISTA, with spending departments, devolved governments and local delivery bodies (action record)

  Scotland:

  HM Treasury and NISTA, with spending departments, devolved governments and local delivery bodies (action record)

  Wales:

  HM Treasury and NISTA, with spending departments, devolved governments and local delivery bodies (action record)

  Northern Ireland:

  HM Treasury and NISTA, with spending departments, devolved governments and local delivery bodies (action record)

  The Infrastructure Pipeline covers UK government projects plus regulated sectors and mayoral authorities; devolved governments run their own capital programmes, not assessed here.

  Dependencies, safeguards and risks

  Depends on: None recorded.

  Safeguards

  • protect maintenance (proposed, not yet specified)

  Risks and residual harms: Double-counting housing/grid benefits; shared workforce bottlenecks.

  Monitoring and measured results

  Metric: Milestones, outturn cost and service outcomes for selected projects.

  Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.

  Measures already on the domain page

  • Total investment (gross fixed capital formation): latest 18.7% (2024); baseline 18.2% (2000) (United Kingdom).
  • Business investment: latest 10.9% (2026 Q2); baseline not published (United Kingdom).

  A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.

  Evidence for the outcome

  Outcome: Milestones, outturn cost and service outcomes for selected projects.

  Macro modelling and delivery audits support the rationale; they do not evaluate the incremental publication or coordination change.

  Effect records for this action

  • Potential output: size not established (modelled, limited confidence; United Kingdom)

  SWOT points it addresses

  • Total investment was 18.7% of GDP in 2024, the lowest in the G7 (the other six had a median of 21.8%); the UK was lowest in 23 of the 33 years since 1992.
  • A ten-year infrastructure plan is in place: at least £725bn of government funding over the decade and an online pipeline of projects with their funding status, updated at least every six months.
  • Public net investment is forecast at 2.5–2.8% of GDP to 2030–31, well above its post-2010 low of 1.5% in 2013–14.
  • Using pipeline data to sequence projects against the workforce, grid and planning capacity they share could turn committed funding into completed assets sooner.

  Review record

  Assessment version: working-review-2026-10-06 (A03@working-review-2026-10-06).

  Reviewer: Author of the review blueprint (single reviewer, not named in uk-facts-complete-plan.json). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

  Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.

  First 90 days (review): Produce a signed scope and current-delivery baseline; Distinguish funded projects from aspirations; sequence resources; name owners and independent assurance; protect maintenance. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.

  Decision route: Project appraisal and sequencing

  An earlier assessment exists on the 4 October 2026 selection table (nine H/M/L bands; superseded 7 October 2026). Its bands are kept, not converted into these scores.

  An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.

• A57■Delivery RAG: RedGate: pending

  City-region growth powers

  Proposed new action A57; sourced research home and appraisal design; scope and funding remain provisional.

  Provisional single-reviewer assessment; not an approved business case.

  Who and where

  Population not yet defined. Jurisdiction: not defined.

  Result so far

  Range if completed: 8.0–17.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

  Funded now (baseline)

  Funded baseline not yet stated

  The change assessed (marginal)

  Marginal change not yet defined

  • Domain home: Growth & productivity
  • In the national plan: Growth and prosperity list

  What the evidence supports—and the next decision

  Moving powers changes who decides; it does not itself identify an additional project or a growth effect.

  Codex — AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.

  Define the change

  Name the power, place and funded responsibility to be transferred beyond the current integrated settlement.

  Test whether it works

  Decision time, delivery and resident outcomes for that function against an explicit counterfactual. Separate local gains from activity displaced from other places.

  Establish the cost

  Transition, staff, data, accountability and the underlying service budget. A transfer between public bodies is not extra national spending.

  Protect against harm

  Publish local scrutiny, equalities and spillover arrangements before attributing a growth benefit.

  • Government: devolution framework and integrated settlements →

  Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.

  Full assessment of City-region growth powers: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring

  The ten criteria (0–3)

  Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.

  1. Scale and severity (Sc)2 of 3 — Serious harm to a defined group or widespread moderate harm

     Reviewer’s reason: Provisional problem-importance judgement from linked site pages; not the scale of achievable benefit.

  2. Increment beyond baseline (Ad)Not yet assessed

     Reviewer’s reason: Specify powers, stable budgets and accountability; integrate transport, housing and skills; assess local capacity. A missing rating requires a defined marginal change.

  3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)0 of 3 — No effect evaluation

     Reviewer’s reason: Regional productivity gaps establish need, not the causal benefit of an unspecified devolution package.

  4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed

     Reviewer’s reason: Unknown unless a reasonably defined target-population benefit can be judged; no bonus merely for spanning domains.

  5. Residual harms (Hm)1 of 3 — Material harm/unresolved mitigation

     Reviewer’s reason: Institutional change and capacity gaps; gains may relocate activity.

  6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

     Reviewer’s reason: Administrative transition, funded responsibilities, investment and evaluation; distinguish transfers from new resources.

  7. Delivery capacity (Ca)1 of 3 — Binding scarce resource

     Reviewer’s reason: Specify powers, stable budgets and accountability; integrate transport, housing and skills; assess local capacity.

  8. Distribution (Fa)2 of 3 — Mixed or broadly neutral with safeguards

     Reviewer’s reason: Provisional distribution judgement for the stated target; verify who pays, who gains and excluded groups.

  9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)1 of 3 — More than three but less than ten years

     Reviewer’s reason: First meaningful outcome, not announcement: Access to jobs, productivity, earnings and inclusion in defined places.

  10. Readiness (Rd)1 of 3 — Legislation/external agreement or major enabling work

      Reviewer’s reason: Central government, mayors/local authorities; nation-specific arrangements; Specify powers and place-based appraisal

  Four weightings

  Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.

  • Equal weights: Range if completed: 8.0–17.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 7.3–15.5 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 9.1–17.3 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 8.9–15.6 out of 30. Not yet assessed: increment beyond baseline (Ad), expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.

  Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.

  Delivery RAG and gate

  ■Delivery RAG shown: RedReview’s claim: Red. Best the recorded evidence allows: Red.

  Review’s reason: Institutional change and capacity gaps; gains may relocate activity.

  Why it is not Green yet

  • Delivery obstacle: Institutional change and capacity gaps; gains may relocate activity..
  • Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
  • No verified owner with the powers in place.
  • Delivery capacity not verified.
  • Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
  • No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
  • Safeguards not specified.
  • Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.

  Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.

  Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending: incomplete appraisal”).

  Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).

  The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.

  Cost and funding

  Lifetime costing: Not established. Review: “Full incremental costing not established in reviewed material”.

  Still to cost: Administrative transition, funded responsibilities, investment and evaluation; distinguish transfers from new resources.

  Funding status: not established in review.

  Owner, powers and capacity

  Proposed owner: Central government, mayors/local authorities; nation-specific arrangements (proposed, unverified).

  Powers: needs legislation or external agreement. Capacity: binding constraint.

  Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).

  England:

  not assessed

  Scotland:

  not assessed

  Wales:

  not assessed

  Northern Ireland:

  not assessed

  Not defined in the review.

  Dependencies, safeguards and risks

  Depends on: None recorded.

  Safeguards

  None specified yet.

  Risks and residual harms: Institutional change and capacity gaps; gains may relocate activity.

  Monitoring and measured results

  Metric: Access to jobs, productivity, earnings and inclusion in defined places.

  Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.

  Evidence for the outcome

  Outcome: Access to jobs, productivity, earnings and inclusion in defined places.

  Regional productivity gaps establish need, not the causal benefit of an unspecified devolution package.

  SWOT points it addresses

  • Output per hour was below the UK average in 10 of 12 nations and regions in 2023: London produced about 29% more per hour than the UK average and Wales about 15% less.
  • Bus use in England was still below its pre-pandemic level in the year to March 2025 — 3.7 billion journeys, 90% of 2019–20 — and local bus fares rose 7% in the year against 3% for consumer prices. There is no current official measure of travel times to jobs: the journey time statistics stopped in 2025, with 2019 the last year.

  Review record

  Assessment version: working-review-2026-10-06 (A57@working-review-2026-10-06).

  Reviewer: Author of the review blueprint (single reviewer, not named in uk-facts-complete-plan.json). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

  Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.

  First 90 days (review): Produce a signed scope and current-delivery baseline; Specify powers, stable budgets and accountability; integrate transport, housing and skills; assess local capacity. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.

  Decision route: Specify powers and place-based appraisal

  An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.

• A67▲Delivery RAG: AmberGate: pending

  Transport access to jobs

  Existing action A67, assessed at the same scope.

  Not stated in the review record; treated as a provisional single-reviewer assessment, not an approved business case.

  Who and where

  Working-age residents without a car along one defined bus corridor in an English city region, where journey times or service hours limit access to employment centres. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: England.

  Result so far

  Range if completed: 14.0–20.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

  Funded now (baseline)

  Funded baseline: the Local Authority Bus Grant (£510.8m revenue in 2026–27 including a £30m uplift) and a £2 single-fare cap outside London for 2027 (£400m for England, announced 22 July 2026). Appraising one corridor for access to jobs, with a comparison, is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy. (from the action record)

  The change assessed (marginal)

  Appraise one defined corridor/service intervention where journey reliability, hours or cost constrain access to jobs. (from the 6 October review)

  • Domain home: Growth & productivity
  • In the national plan: Related option, assessed separately

  What the evidence supports—and the next decision

  More passenger journeys do not establish additional employment. The transport intervention must address a demonstrated access constraint.

  Codex — AI-assisted analytical follow-up · 8 October 2026. Proposed appraisal design; the attributed scores below are unchanged. No funding or delivery agreement is implied.

  Define the change

  Appraise a named corridor and change in hours, reliability, frequency or fares against existing services.

  Test whether it works

  Door-to-door access to suitable jobs, reliability, sustained employment and displacement; assess accessibility as well as average journey time.

  Establish the cost

  Vehicles, operating hours, maintenance, subsidy and infrastructure net of fares; include ongoing operation after capital funding ends.

  Protect against harm

  Protect disabled and rural users and assess effects on other routes. Do not label old discontinued journey-time statistics as current.

  Read with the outcome evidence and sources in the full assessment. Monitoring proposals are not existing baseline measurements. A numerical benefit or cost score needs evidence for the defined increment, not just the scale of the problem.

  Full assessment of Transport access to jobs: ten criteria, scenarios, delivery, costs and monitoring

  The ten criteria (0–3)

  Each criterion is scored 0 to 3 by the reviewer. “Not yet assessed” means unknown: it is never counted as zero.

  1. Scale and severity (Sc)2 of 3 — Serious harm to a defined group or widespread moderate harm

  2. Increment beyond baseline (Ad)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery

  3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)1 of 3 — Indirect, mixed, modelled or weak causal support

  4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)Not yet assessed

  5. Residual harms (Hm)1 of 3 — Material harm/unresolved mitigation

  6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

  7. Delivery capacity (Ca)1 of 3 — Binding scarce resource

  8. Distribution (Fa)3 of 3 — Benefits concentrated on disadvantaged people with assessed burdens

  9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)2 of 3 — More than one and up to three years

  10. Readiness (Rd)2 of 3 — Named commissioning/allocation/coordination step

  Four weightings

  Normalised as 10 × weighted sum ÷ sum of weights, on a 0–30 scale. Where a criterion is not yet assessed, the range is the lowest and highest result if it were later scored 0 or 3 — not a score, a confidence interval or a rank.

  • Equal weights: Range if completed: 14.0–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 13.6–19.1 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 14.5–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
  • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 15.6–18.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.

  Funding gate: Not passed — the cost is not yet assessed or no allocation is committed for this scope. Ignoring cost in a weighting never removes the gate.

  Delivery RAG and gate

  ▲Delivery RAG shown: AmberReview’s claim: Amber. Best the recorded evidence allows: Amber.

  Review’s reason: Name route/mode, baseline users, service hours and comparator; cost operation, capital, subsidy and maintenance. Assess accessibility and displacement, not gross local job counts. Proposed owners: transport authorities/operators and relevant national bodies.

  Why it is not Green yet

  • Scope (population, place and increment) not verified against the delivery baseline.
  • No verified owner with the powers in place.
  • Delivery capacity not verified.
  • Lifetime incremental costs not complete.
  • No credible funding (a committed allocation for the scope).
  • Safeguards not specified.
  • Monitoring lacks a metric, a data source or a baseline.

  Green needs verified scope, a verified owner with the powers, verified capacity, complete lifetime costs with credible funding, specified safeguards and monitoring with a metric, source and baseline. Amber means appraisal gaps remain; Red means a material delivery obstacle. Red does not mean unimportant.

  Gate: Pending — appraisal incomplete (review label: “Pending baseline verification, incremental costing and funding; not a rollout approval”).

  Why: Scores incomplete; Funding gate not passed (cost unknown or no credible funding).

  The gate is separate from national list membership: being listed does not make an option eligible, and an eligible option need not be listed.

  Cost and funding

  Lifetime costing: Not established. Review: “Not fully costed in this review”.

  Still to cost: Name route/mode, baseline users, service hours and comparator; cost operation, capital, subsidy and maintenance. Assess accessibility and displacement, not gross local job counts. Proposed owners: transport authorities/operators and relevant national bodies.

  Funding status: not identified.

  Owner, powers and capacity

  Proposed owner: transport authorities/operators and relevant national bodies (proposed, unverified).

  Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: binding constraint.

  Powers and capacity read from the review’s Rd and Ca anchors; no proposed owner has agreed to act (the review: “Proposed owners have not agreed to act”).

  England:

  Local transport authorities and mayoral combined authorities (franchising or enhanced partnerships under the Bus Services Act 2025), with the Department for Transport (action record)

  Scotland:

  not assessed

  Wales:

  not assessed

  Northern Ireland:

  not assessed

  Buses are devolved in Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; London runs its own franchised network. Not assessed outside England.

  Dependencies, safeguards and risks

  Depends on: None recorded.

  Safeguards

  None specified yet.

  Monitoring and measured results

  Metric: Define and baseline the outcome described in delivery requirements before approval.

  Data source: Not yet named. Baseline: Not yet established.

  Measures already on the domain page

  • Local bus passenger journeys: latest 3.7 billion (90% of 2019–20) (Year ending March 2025); baseline not published (England).

  A page measure is not necessarily the review’s metric; linking the two is an editorial decision still to be made.

  Evidence for the outcome

  Outcome: Define and baseline the outcome described in delivery requirements before approval.

  Transport evidence shows mixed employment effects and possible displacement. No selected corridor or mode has a costed case here.

  Sources: whatworksgrowth.org (P-GC-WWG-TRANSPORT-2015)

  SWOT points it addresses

  • Bus use in England was still below its pre-pandemic level in the year to March 2025 — 3.7 billion journeys, 90% of 2019–20 — and local bus fares rose 7% in the year against 3% for consumer prices. There is no current official measure of travel times to jobs: the journey time statistics stopped in 2025, with 2019 the last year.

  Review record

  Assessment version: working-review-2026-10-06 (A67@working-review-2026-10-06).

  Reviewer: Author of the review blueprint (single reviewer, not named in uk-facts-complete-plan.json). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

  Scored in the working review of 6 October 2026 on the shared ten-criterion scale (one reviewer); not independently calibrated.

  An editorial screening framework by one reviewer, not a formal appraisal or business case. Proposed owners have not agreed to act.

The leading option set out as a decision someone could take: who decides, who benefits, the best evidence, cost and funding, and the main trade-off. The full research record is one click away.

The outcome measures to watch. A baseline is where we start, not a target; where there is no official target we say so.

• Steady public investment through a published pipeline

  Judged on: Milestones, outturn cost and service outcomes for selected projects.

  Data source: not yet named; baseline: not yet established.

  • Total investment (gross fixed capital formation)Latest: 18.7% (2024). Baseline: 18.2% (2000). United Kingdom.
  • Business investmentLatest: 10.9% (2026 Q2). Baseline: not published. United Kingdom.

  ↑ National plan: Growth and prosperity list

• City-region growth powers

  Judged on: Access to jobs, productivity, earnings and inclusion in defined places.

  Data source: not yet named; baseline: not yet established.

  No measure on this page yet.

  ↑ National plan: Growth and prosperity list

• Transport access to jobs

  Judged on: Define and baseline the outcome described in delivery requirements before approval.

  Data source: not yet named; baseline: not yet established.

  • Local bus passenger journeysLatest: 3.7 billion (90% of 2019–20) (Year ending March 2025). Baseline: not published. England.

  ↑ National plan: Related option, assessed separately