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Follow the money: evidence and policy appraisals

Detailed research records, alternatives, costs and provisional assessments. These records preserve different scopes and historical reviews; they are not an additional ranked action plan.

Evidence → choices → outcomes

What could improve it?

More legitimate tax collected and public contracts that deliver what they were bought for, counted as cash actually received.

These options link to their national assessment, including funding, delivery constraints and remaining uncertainties.

  • Assessed option · provisional

    Deliver what is already funded

    8/10 criteria scored

    Coverage of the appraisal, not an impact score.

    Delivery: Amber

    Whole-life costs incomplete

    Evidence and delivery constraints

    Audits diagnose failures; no general cash saving is established for this proposal.

    Name contracts, renewal dates and weaknesses; recruit commercial expertise; publish baselines, performance and remedies.

    Growth and prosperity listEvidence and assessment

  • Assessed option · provisional

    Collect the tax already due

    8/10 criteria scored

    Coverage of the appraisal, not an impact score.

    Delivery: Amber

    Whole-life costs incomplete

    Evidence and delivery constraints

    Compliance activity can yield revenue; the return from the proposed extra high-wealth focus is not established here.

    Reconcile existing forecast baseline; define cases, staff, legal powers and collection horizon; audit net additional receipts.

    Equality and opportunity listEvidence and assessment

  • Assessed option · provisional

    Protect water supplies and low-income households

    Target a defined unmetered cohort in designated stressed areas.

    9/10 criteria scored

    Coverage of the appraisal, not an impact score.

    Delivery: Amber

    Whole-life costs incomplete

    Evidence and delivery constraints

    English household-panel evidence supports lower consumption after metering; the proposed tariff package is not separately evaluated.

    Compare the extra cohort with the committed rollout; cost meters and tariff protection before proceeding. Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline; do not automatically generalise one company estimate.

    Resilience and sustainability appraisal queueEvidence and assessment

This domain in the UK SWOT →UK National Action Plan →

How we assessed these options

What would it take to improve this?

Detailed policy appraisal

The outcome we want: More legitimate tax collected and public contracts that deliver what they were bought for, counted as cash actually received.

The main constraint: The NAO’s February 2026 large-business audit found that HMRC lacked evidence on marginal returns from further compliance investment; over half the gap comes from error and lack of care rather than evasion and most of it arises among small businesses, and contracting authorities lack contract-management staff — so the binding constraints are evidence and capacity, not a pot of money waiting to be found.

Constraint type: evidence, workforce.

The options on the table

What is funded now, and the changes assessed against it — the current baseline and the alternatives, before the position today and the actions.

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

  • Deliver what is already fundedDelivery risk: Amber

    Funded now
    Not yet stated in the record.
    The change assessed
    Not yet defined.

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

  • Collect the tax already dueDelivery risk: Amber

    Funded now
    A large package is already funded and running: Autumn Budget 2024 expected £6.5bn a year by 2029–30 from 5,000 extra compliance staff and 1,800 debt-management staff. Later measures raised this: HMRC’s August 2026 update gives £10bn of additional tax revenue a year by 2029–30 and plans for 5,500 new compliance caseworkers (more than 2,400 compliance staff recruited since Autumn Budget 2024). That yield is already in the fiscal forecasts. Any further package beyond it is a UK Facts proposal.
    The change assessed
    Not yet defined.

    Range if completed: 13.0–19.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))

  • Protect water supplies and low-income householdsDelivery risk: Amber

    Funded now
    Builds on announced policy: the January 2026 white paper commits companies to smart meters for 50% of homes and businesses by 2030 and to changes in tariff structures, and companies in seriously water-stressed areas may already meter compulsorily (Southern Water did so in 2010–15). Metering every home in those areas with a protected social tariff is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy.
    The change assessed
    Target a defined unmetered cohort in designated stressed areas; protect affordability and distinguish use from leakage.

    Range if completed: 18.0–21.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co))

Alternatives already on record: 25 options listed under the points in the position today (17 without an action record), and 3 earlier options under other options compared. They have not been scored in the review.

The position today

  • What we can build on (2)
  • What is holding us back (2)The estimated tax gap was £59.2bn (6.4% of tax due). £20.8bn came from failure to take reasonable care and £9.3bn from error; £36.7bn arose among small businesses. (tax year 2024–25 · United Kingdom)
  • What could improve things (2)Targeting named parts of the gap — including help with record-keeping where error dominates — and publishing outcomes for renewing contracts would turn big theoretical numbers into auditable cash and services.
  • What could make it worse (2)

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.

What we can build on Strengths

What is holding us back Weaknesses

What could improve things Opportunities

What could make it worse Threats

The actions worth examining

Our shortlist for this page. Research quality, policy status, cost and funding are judged separately; none of these is government policy unless its status says so.Our shortlist. None is government policy unless its status says so.

  1. Collect the tax already due — not yet costed / funding not identified
  2. Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery — not yet costed / funding not identified
  3. Protect water supplies and low-income households — not yet costed / funding not identified

  • Action 1A19Policy status: funded programme

    Collect the tax already due

    Target a named part of the gap with a specific intervention (support, digital checks or enforcement), and count only the extra cash collected beyond what forecasts already include.

    The thread: issue, evidence, action

    1. Issue Weakness: The estimated tax gap was £59.2bn (6.4% of tax due). £20.8bn came from failure to take reasonable care and £9.3bn from error; £36.7bn arose among small businesses. Also: threat, strength
    2. Evidence Tax gap, share of tax due
    3. Action A19, this action

    Budget 2026 responds to this

    Budget 2026 adopts a costed compliance package; the tracker follows whether the yield arrives.

    HMRCOnline Marketplace LiabilityTrack delivery →

    Assessment (draft, 6 October review)

    Who decides:
    HMRC and HM Treasury; Parliament for new powers; the OBR certifies costings (UK)
    Evidence:
    Expert or audit recommendation. An NAO audit supports the logic of compliance work but shows that average past returns do not reveal the return to extra staff.
    Expected effect:
    Direction plausible; size not established.
    Cost and funding

    Not yet costed

    Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified

    Why it is shortlisted here: Replaces the idea of a giant recoverable pot with specific, auditable cash beyond what forecasts already include.

    What it takes
    The problem

    Headline tax-gap figures are treated as money waiting to be collected, but just over half the gap comes from error and failure to take reasonable care, about three-fifths of it arises among small businesses, and the extra yield from more enforcement is not known.

    Who is affected, and where

    UK taxpayers in the targeted segment (for example small businesses), and everyone who relies on public services. Territory: UK. HMRC administers UK taxes; Scottish and Welsh income tax and devolved taxes (Revenue Scotland, Welsh Revenue Authority) need their own arrangements, not assessed here.

    Policy status

    A funded programme already exists. A large package is already funded and running: Autumn Budget 2024 expected £6.5bn a year by 2029–30 from 5,000 extra compliance staff and 1,800 debt-management staff. Later measures raised this: HMRC’s August 2026 update gives £10bn of additional tax revenue a year by 2029–30 and plans for 5,500 new compliance caseworkers (more than 2,400 compliance staff recruited since Autumn Budget 2024). That yield is already in the fiscal forecasts. Any further package beyond it is a UK Facts proposal.

    The evidence
    What the research found:
    The NAO found compliance yield of £15.8bn in 2024–25 is revenue “collected or protected”, not cash; it equals about £95 per £1 of staff pay but about £58 per £1 with overheads, and HMRC could not say what marginal return further investment would bring.
    Evaluated on:
    HMRC’s large business directorate (about 2,000 groups); United Kingdom, 2017–18 to 2024–25
    Transfer to this case:
    Large-business returns do not transfer to small businesses, where most of the gap arises.
    Our recommendation (separate from the research):
    Publish, for any new package, the targeted gap, the expected cash beyond forecast, its cost including overheads and appeals, and taxpayer-service effects — and report cash collected each year.
    Strongest counter-evidence:
    Returns diminish as easier cases are worked; yield includes revenue “protected” that never arrives as cash; wrongly challenged taxpayers bear real costs.
    Effects on record
    • Net tax receipts beyond forecast: Direction plausible; size not established. plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom. HMRC could not tell the NAO the marginal return to further investment; average yield ratios overstate it, and yield is not all cash.
    • Costs to compliant taxpayers wrongly challenged: A cost or harm; size not established. plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom. A risk to monitor through upheld disputes and service measures; not quantified.
    Cost and funding

    Cost completeness: Not yet costed. Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified.

    • HMRC staff, training, systems, appeals and overheads for a further compliance package (administration; paid by central government): Not yet costed. Staff-only return ratios omit overheads (the NAO puts large-business returns at about £95 per £1 of staff pay but about £58 with overheads), and average returns are not marginal returns. Collections must be profiled over several years.
    Who pays:
    HMRC (taxpayers) for staff, systems and appeals; compliant taxpayers and their advisers for time spent on checks.
    Financing proposed:
    None. The £6.5bn a year from the 2024 package is already counted in the forecasts and cannot pay for anything new; a further package needs its own HMRC funding and an independently scrutinised costing of net cash.
    Gap remaining:
    Unknown: no further package has been specified or costed.
    What delivery needs
    Skills:
    Trained compliance and debt staff, who take time to become productive.
    Operational capacity:
    HMRC case-management and IT systems; tribunal capacity for disputes.
    Infrastructure:
    Data matching and digital records.
    Permissions:
    None beyond existing powers for most work.
    Law:
    New powers only for specific measures.
    Public consent:
    Public acceptance of checks; safeguards for taxpayers.
    First step and stages

    First step: Name one part of the gap, the intervention, and what the current forecast already assumes for it. (owner: HMRC with HM Treasury)

    1. Pilot the intervention on a defined segment — HMRC (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    2. Cost and certify the net cash beyond forecast — HMRC, HM Treasury, OBR (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    3. Scale only if cash collected holds up over several years — HMRC (proposed stage, not an official timetable)

    Depends on: Recruitment and training under the 2024 package; OBR certification of any new costing

    Trade-offs
    Who gains and who loses:
    Falls on non-compliant taxpayers, mostly small businesses; compliant firms gain from a level playing field; mistaken challenges burden honest taxpayers.
    What else the money or effort could do:
    HMRC staff on compliance are not answering customer queries or processing repayments.
    Strongest counterargument:
    Much of the gap is error, which simpler rules or better service may reduce more cheaply than enforcement.
    Risks:
    Spending the same forecast revenue twice; overstating yield; harming taxpayer service.
    How we would judge it
    Baseline:
    Tax gap 6.4% of liabilities (£59.2bn) in 2024–25 (HMRC).
    Leading indicator:
    Cash collected from the targeted segment, reported separately from assessed yield.
    Outcome:
    Net cash beyond forecast, errors, disputes upheld and taxpayer service levels.
    Continue, adapt or stop:
    Stop or redesign if cash collected falls well below the costing, or upheld disputes and service complaints rise.
    Earlier option on this page

    This card replaces the option “Invest in HMRC compliance and debt collection” (funded: Announced at the Autumn Budget 2024 and in the forecasts.). Its evidence: The government expects its compliance package (Autumn Budget 2024, extended at later fiscal events) to raise £10bn a year by 2029–30. The Autumn Budget 2024 part (£6.5bn) was certified by the OBR. Most of the gap arises among small businesses, and HMRC attributes most of it to error and lack of care rather than evasion, so enforcement aimed at large companies reaches only a small share. HM Revenue and Customs, HMRC performance update: 2026 to 2027 quarter 1 · HM Treasury, Autumn Budget 2024 (HC 295) · HMRC, Measuring tax gaps 2026 edition, 1. Tax gaps: summary (estimates for the 2024 to 2025 tax year)

    Sources

    Source published February 2026 (NAO); October 2024 (Budget); June 2026 (HMRC tax gap); evidence reviewed 2026-10-04. Reconsider if: HMRC publishes outturn for the 2024 package; A new tax gap edition; A fiscal event announces further compliance funding.

    Also on: Revenue options — one shared record, so its cost is counted once.

  • Action 2A23Policy status: site-editorial action

    Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

    Specify the outcome before tender, publish whole-life cost and milestones, and staff skilled contract management for the life of the contract.

    The thread: issue, evidence, action

    1. Issue Weakness (Public procurement): 34 of 172 rated government major projects were Red (successful delivery appears unachievable, with major issues that do not appear manageable at that stage), 16 ratings were withheld and 1 project was not yet rated. Also: opportunityHow acting here reaches it: Buying measurable results and managing contracts through delivery is meant to bring more major projects out of Red, the ratings the procurement page records for public money spent through contracts.
    2. Evidence Government major projects rated Red
    3. Action A23, this action

    Assessment (draft, 6 October review)

    Who decides:
    Contracting authorities, the Cabinet Office (Government Commercial Function) and departments; the MOD for defence (UK)
    Evidence:
    Expert or audit recommendation. Consistent recommendations from research and audit; no evaluation estimates the savings or service effects.
    Expected effect:
    Direction plausible; size not established.
    Cost and funding

    Not yet costed

    Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified

    Why it is shortlisted here: Public contracts are the largest flow of public money on this page; delivery, not the size of the total, is what matters.

    What it takes
    The problem

    Weak specification and thin contract-management capacity stop public purchases turning into the services and capabilities intended.

    Who is affected, and where

    Users of publicly contracted services and capabilities; suppliers, including small firms. Territory: UK. The Procurement Act 2023 applies to UK-wide and English bodies and Wales and Northern Ireland; Scotland largely keeps its own regime, not assessed here.

    Policy status

    UK Facts proposal. Builds on rules already in force: the Procurement Act 2023 (from 24 February 2025) requires KPIs and performance publication for larger contracts. Applying an outcome-and-milestone baseline to a named set of renewing contracts is a UK Facts proposal.

    The evidence
    What the research found:
    The Institute for Government finds government buys more than £400bn a year and that late commercial involvement, over-specified procurements, poor data and weak contract-management capacity block delivery. RUSI argues defence requirements should be set with budget and technical authority together. The NAO found the MOD’s 2023–2033 equipment plan £16.9bn over budget.
    Evaluated on:
    UK central government procurement (interviews); MOD equipment programmes (audit and commentary); United Kingdom, 2023–2026
    Our recommendation (separate from the research):
    Publish outcome, whole-life cost and milestones for a defined set of renewing contracts and report them through delivery; fund commercial staff from named budgets where justified.
    Strongest counter-evidence:
    More reporting can deter small suppliers and add cost; outcome contracts are hard to specify for complex services; social-value requirements complicate price comparison.
    Effects on record
    • Contracts delivering the specified service on time and near cost: Direction plausible; size not established. plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom. Recommended by research and audit; no evaluation estimates the effect.
    • Defence equipment programmes delivered closer to budget and schedule: Direction plausible; size not established. plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom. Audit and expert recommendations, not an evaluation: no source estimates how much better contract management would reduce overruns, and policy changes cause some of them.
    Cost and funding

    Cost completeness: Not yet costed. Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified.

    • Commercial staff, contract oversight, transition, maintenance and supplier compliance (administration; paid by central government, councils): Not yet costed. Total procurement spending is not a fund or a savings base; no source estimates savings from better contract management.
    Who pays:
    Contracting authorities’ running budgets (commercial staff and oversight); suppliers bear compliance and reporting costs, partly passed back in prices.
    Financing proposed:
    From named procurement or programme budgets where a business case justifies it. Total procurement spending is a measure of buying, not a spare fund or a proven savings base.
    Gap remaining:
    Unknown: commercial capability has not been costed for any defined set of contracts.
    What delivery needs
    Skills:
    Commercial and contract-management professionals; technical specifiers.
    Operational capacity:
    Time for pre-market engagement and in-life management.
    Infrastructure:
    The central digital platform and contract data.
    Permissions:
    None.
    Law:
    Procurement Act 2023 duties already apply.
    Public consent:
    Suppliers willing to bid on outcome terms.
    First step and stages

    First step: Apply the approach to a defined set of renewing contracts and publish their baseline cost, outcome and milestones. (owner: Cabinet Office with lead departments (MOD for defence))

    1. Select renewing contracts and publish baselines — Cabinet Office, departments (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    2. Design outcomes before tender — Contracting authorities (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    3. Report milestones and outcomes through the contract — Contracting authorities; NAO (proposed stage, not an official timetable)

    Depends on: Procurement Act reporting data; A42 for innovation trials within the same rules

    Trade-offs
    Who gains and who loses:
    Service users gain if delivery improves; incumbent suppliers may lose; small firms gain or lose depending on reporting burden.
    What else the money or effort could do:
    Commercial staff are scarce; deploying them on these contracts leaves others less managed.
    Strongest counterargument:
    Procurement failures often stem from policy changes and unrealistic budgets, which better contract management cannot fix.
    Risks:
    Box-ticking reporting, supplier withdrawal and gaming of outcome measures.
    How we would judge it
    Baseline:
    Government major projects rated Red: 34 of 172 rated (NISTA, March 2026).
    Leading indicator:
    Share of renewing contracts with published outcomes, whole-life cost and milestones.
    Outcome:
    Delivery against milestones, change orders, late payment and supplier participation.
    Continue, adapt or stop:
    Expand where contracts meet milestones closer to cost than comparable contracts; drop measures that deter bidders without improving delivery.
    Sources

    Source published September 2025 (IfG); July 2024 (RUSI); December 2023 (NAO); July 2026 (NISTA); evidence reviewed 2026-10-04. Reconsider if: First central publication of Procurement Act KPI data; A new NISTA annual report; An evaluation of outcome-based contracts.

    Also on: Public procurement, Defence — one shared record, so its cost is counted once.

  • Action 3A53Policy status: external proposal

    Protect water supplies and low-income households

    Charging by measured use in areas designated as seriously water stressed lowers household consumption from the day a meter is fitted; a social tariff funded within bills limits the cost to low-income households.

    The thread: issue, evidence, action

    1. Issue Threat (Growth & productivity): Water could limit growth: without action England faces a public water supply deficit of up to 5 billion litres a day by 2055, and in late September 2026 ten of the fourteen Environment Agency areas were in drought, with temporary use (hosepipe) bans affecting around 30 million people. Also: threat (Hampshire), opportunityHow acting here reaches it: Metered charging lowers household demand on the same public supplies whose 2055 deficit the growth page records, so less of the gap has to be met by new reservoirs and transfers.
    2. Evidence Projected public water supply deficit by 2055, without further action; Reservoir storage, England
    3. Action A53, this action

    Assessment (draft, 6 October review)

    Who decides:
    Defra and the water regulator (Ofwat, until the single regulator in the January 2026 white paper replaces it), with water companies in areas designated as seriously water stressed (England)
    Evidence:
    Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluation. A household panel analysis of England’s first universal metering programme compared consumption before and after meters were fitted, with fixed effects and households not yet switched as a comparison; it is one company, one period and a working paper.
    Expected effect:
    Direction plausible; size not established.
    Cost and funding

    Not yet costed

    Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified

    Why it is shortlisted here: Water bills are the regulated money on this page with the clearest unmet purpose — the projected supply gap — and metering has UK evidence of cutting use, if low-income households are protected.

    What it takes
    The problem

    England faces a public water supply deficit of up to 5 billion litres a day by 2055, and in September 2026 ten of the fourteen Environment Agency areas were in drought. Cutting demand is expected to close most of the gap, but metering is uneven and, without protection, leaves poorer households worse off.

    Who is affected, and where

    Households in areas of England designated as seriously water stressed, especially in the South East, East and Midlands, where the framework projects deficits to remain. Territory: England. Water policy is devolved. Wales sets its own metering and charging rules (Welsh Government, with Ofwat’s successor for Welsh companies); Scottish Water is publicly owned and charges through council tax bands; Northern Ireland has no domestic water charges. None was reviewed here.

    Policy status

    Proposed by researchers or others, not government policy. Builds on announced policy: the January 2026 white paper commits companies to smart meters for 50% of homes and businesses by 2030 and to changes in tariff structures, and companies in seriously water-stressed areas may already meter compulsorily (Southern Water did so in 2010–15). Metering every home in those areas with a protected social tariff is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy.

    The evidence
    What the research found:
    Metering cut household water consumption by between 18% and 22% on average, with a similar percentage fall across income groups. Less affluent households were on average around £10 a year worse off, higher-income households gained, and for a large share of households the social cost of a meter exceeded its benefit.
    Evaluated on:
    Households in Southern Water’s Universal Metering Programme (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex and Kent); South East England, 2010–2015
    Transfer to this case:
    Meters are now smart and tariffs differ by company; the 2010–15 effect is evidence on the mechanism, not a forecast for other areas. The framework’s projection that demand management closes most of the deficit is modelled.
    Our recommendation (separate from the research):
    Meter homes in areas designated as seriously water stressed, starting where deficits are largest, and pair it with a social tariff funded within bills; report consumption per person and the bills of low-income households each year.
    Strongest counter-evidence:
    The same study finds that for a large share of households the social cost of a meter outweighs its benefit, and that less affluent households lose on average; it suggests selective metering of larger households could be more efficient than universal metering.
    Cost and funding

    Cost completeness: Not yet costed. Funding: Not yet costed / funding not identified.

    • Meters, installation and a protected social tariff in seriously water-stressed areas (capital; paid by bill-payers, households): Not yet costed. Not estimated here. The 2010–15 programme’s meter costs are a historical price for one company, not a current cost; the social tariff is a transfer between bill-payers, not public spending.
    Who pays:
    Water bill-payers in the areas metered (meters and installation through company allowances set by the regulator); a social tariff is a cross-subsidy from other bill-payers.
    Financing proposed:
    The 2025–30 regulated programme already funds smart-meter roll-out; any extension would be decided in the regulator’s next price review, not from public spending.
    Gap remaining:
    Unknown: neither the cost of metering every home in the designated areas nor the cost of a protected social tariff has been estimated here.
    What delivery needs
    Skills:
    Meter installers and customer-support staff.
    Operational capacity:
    Smart-meter supply and data systems in each company.
    Infrastructure:
    Meters and the data network behind them.
    Permissions:
    Designation of seriously water-stressed areas by the Environment Agency; regulator approval of tariffs.
    Law:
    Compulsory metering is permitted in designated areas under existing law; a mandatory social tariff would need a regulatory or legislative decision.
    Public consent:
    Public acceptance of compulsory meters; protection for large low-income households.
    First step and stages

    First step: Defra and the regulator set a timetable for metering homes in the designated areas with the largest projected deficits, and the design of a social tariff to protect low-income households, before the next price review. (owner: Defra with the water regulator)

    1. Set the metering timetable and social-tariff design — Defra and the regulator (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    2. Fit meters and switch charging after a grace period — Water companies (proposed stage, not an official timetable)
    3. Report consumption per person and low-income bills — Water companies; regulator (proposed stage, not an official timetable)

    Depends on: Environment Agency designation of seriously water-stressed areas; The single new water regulator and its first price review

    Trade-offs
    Who gains and who loses:
    Households that use little water, often smaller and higher-income households, gain; large low-income households can lose without a social tariff, which is why the two are paired.
    What else the money or effort could do:
    Bill-funded money and installer time spent on meters is not available for leakage repair or new supply; a social tariff raises other customers’ bills.
    Strongest counterargument:
    Universal metering may cost society more than it saves for many households; selective metering of high users, or leakage repair, could deliver more water per pound.
    Risks:
    Hardship for large low-income households; consumption falls fading over time; installation delays; public opposition.
    How we would judge it
    Baseline:
    Public water supply deficit of up to 5 billion litres a day by 2055 (Environment Agency, England); drought status and temporary use bans in the weekly Environment Agency report.
    Leading indicator:
    Share of homes metered in designated areas; take-up of the social tariff.
    Outcome:
    Household consumption per person in metered areas against unmetered comparison areas; bills of low-income households.
    Continue, adapt or stop:
    Continue where consumption falls without low-income bills rising; switch to selective metering where costs exceed water saved.
    Sources

    Source published 2018 (University of Southampton); 17 June 2025 (Environment Agency framework); 20 January 2026 (white paper); evidence reviewed 2026-10-04. Reconsider if: The regulator’s next price review; An updated water resources framework or regional plans; A new evaluation of smart metering in England.

How the options are assessed

One shared record per option — the same one the national plan reads. Delivery risk, gate and list membership are separate judgements.

  • Deliver what is already funded — Amber delivery RAG; gate pending
  • Collect the tax already due — Amber delivery RAG; gate pending
  • Protect water supplies and low-income households — Amber delivery RAG; gate pending

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

  • GRP-01Delivery risk: AmberGate: pending

    Deliver what is already funded

    A broad priority grouping A23, A20; its scores are its own, never an average of its members.

    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: 14.0–20.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
    Funded now (baseline)
    Funded baseline not yet stated
    The change assessed (marginal)
    Marginal change not yet defined
    What the evidence supports—and the next decision

    Procurement, digital delivery and contract management are distinct interventions. Their possible savings cannot be added without checking overlap.

    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
    Select a service and contract cohort; separate procurement reform, contract management and digital process changes into costed work packages.
    Test whether it works
    Measure service quality and total unit cost against a documented pre-change baseline and comparison contracts. Verify cash released in accounts separately from staff time freed.
    Establish the cost
    Commercial staff, systems, migration, legal work and transition; reconcile savings to budgets and exclude savings already booked elsewhere.
    Protect against harm
    Protect service continuity, contestability and appeal routes; an apparent saving achieved by restricting access fails the service test.

    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 Deliver what is already funded: 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)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery

      Reviewer’s reason: Name contracts, renewal dates and weaknesses; recruit commercial expertise; publish baselines, performance and remedies. 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: Audits diagnose failures; no general cash saving is established for this proposal.

    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: Legal disputes; supplier exits; pushing costs elsewhere.

    6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Commercial staff, data systems, legal work and transition costs; separately verify cashable savings.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Name contracts, renewal dates and weaknesses; recruit commercial expertise; publish baselines, performance and remedies.

    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: Quality-adjusted service delivered, whole-life costs and supplier performance.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Contracting authorities and Cabinet Office; Bounded contract-improvement programme

    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 risk and gate

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

    Review’s reason: Commercial staff, data systems, legal work and transition costs; separately verify cashable savings.

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

    Still to cost: Commercial staff, data systems, legal work and transition costs; separately verify cashable savings.

    Funding status: not established in review.

    Owner, powers and capacity

    Proposed owner: Contracting authorities and Cabinet Office (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:
    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: Legal disputes; supplier exits; pushing costs elsewhere.

    Monitoring and measured results

    Metric: Quality-adjusted service delivered, whole-life costs and supplier performance.

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

    Measures already on the domain page

    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: Quality-adjusted service delivered, whole-life costs and supplier performance.

    Audits diagnose failures; no general cash saving is established for this proposal.

    Review record

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

    Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). 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; Name contracts, renewal dates and weaknesses; recruit commercial expertise; publish baselines, performance and remedies. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.

    Decision route: Bounded contract-improvement programme

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

  • A19Delivery risk: AmberGate: pending

    Collect the tax already due

    Existing action A19, assessed at the same scope.

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

    Who and where
    UK taxpayers in the targeted segment (for example small businesses), and everyone who relies on public services. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: UK.
    Result so far
    Range if completed: 13.0–19.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co))
    Funded now (baseline)
    A large package is already funded and running: Autumn Budget 2024 expected £6.5bn a year by 2029–30 from 5,000 extra compliance staff and 1,800 debt-management staff. Later measures raised this: HMRC’s August 2026 update gives £10bn of additional tax revenue a year by 2029–30 and plans for 5,500 new compliance caseworkers (more than 2,400 compliance staff recruited since Autumn Budget 2024). That yield is already in the fiscal forecasts. Any further package beyond it is a UK Facts proposal. (from the action record)
    The change assessed (marginal)
    Marginal change not yet defined
    What the evidence supports—and the next decision

    Compliance yield includes different kinds of revenue protection; it is not all cash collected in the year or a transferable marginal return.

    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
    Select a tax-risk cohort and additional compliance method beyond existing staffing and digital commitments.
    Test whether it works
    Additional collected receipts net of refunds, appeals and costs over time, with a defensible comparison and separate prevention estimates.
    Establish the cost
    Recruitment, training, systems, litigation and taxpayer burden. Reconcile forecast yield to cash and prevent double counting across tax measures.
    Protect against harm
    Protect proportionality, correct assessments, privacy and accessible appeals.

    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 Collect the tax already due: 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)2 of 3 — Specific material change to existing delivery

      Reviewer’s reason: Reconcile existing forecast baseline; define cases, staff, legal powers and collection horizon; audit net additional receipts. 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: Compliance activity can yield revenue; the return from the proposed extra high-wealth focus is not established here.

    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: Due-process burdens; yield lags and double counting existing forecasts.

    6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Recruitment/training, systems, litigation, taxpayer compliance and collection costs; gross yield is not net cash.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Reconcile existing forecast baseline; define cases, staff, legal powers and collection horizon; audit net additional receipts.

    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: Collected additional revenue net of costs, error and disputes.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: HMRC and Treasury; Cost marginal compliance programme

    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: 13.0–19.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 12.7–18.2 out of 30. Not yet assessed: expected incremental benefit (Bn), incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Scale 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.
    • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 14.4–17.8 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 risk and gate

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

    Review’s reason: Recruitment/training, systems, litigation, taxpayer compliance and collection costs; gross yield is not net cash.

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

    • HMRC staff, training, systems, appeals and overheads for a further compliance package (not costed; C-A19-PACKAGE)

    Still to cost: Recruitment/training, systems, litigation, taxpayer compliance and collection costs; gross yield is not net cash.

    Funding status: not identified.

    Owner, powers and capacity

    Proposed owner: HMRC and Treasury (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:
    HMRC and HM Treasury; Parliament for new powers; the OBR certifies costings (action record)
    Scotland:
    HMRC and HM Treasury; Parliament for new powers; the OBR certifies costings (action record)
    Wales:
    HMRC and HM Treasury; Parliament for new powers; the OBR certifies costings (action record)
    Northern Ireland:
    HMRC and HM Treasury; Parliament for new powers; the OBR certifies costings (action record)

    HMRC administers UK taxes; Scottish and Welsh income tax and devolved taxes (Revenue Scotland, Welsh Revenue Authority) need their own arrangements, not assessed here.

    Dependencies, safeguards and risks

    Depends on: None recorded.

    Safeguards

    None specified yet.

    Risks and residual harms: Due-process burdens; yield lags and double counting existing forecasts.

    Monitoring and measured results

    Metric: Collected additional revenue net of costs, error and disputes.

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

    Measures already on the domain page

    • Tax gap, share of tax due: latest 6.4% (tax year 2024–25 (projection, revised in later editions)); 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: Collected additional revenue net of costs, error and disputes.

    Compliance activity can yield revenue; the return from the proposed extra high-wealth focus is not established here.

    Effect records for this action

    • Net tax receipts beyond forecast: size not established (plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom)
    • Costs to compliant taxpayers wrongly challenged: size not established (plausible spillover, limited confidence; United Kingdom)
    Review record

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

    Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). 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; Reconcile existing forecast baseline; define cases, staff, legal powers and collection horizon; audit net additional receipts. Obtain incremental costs and an accountable decision before expansion.

    Decision route: Cost marginal compliance programme

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

  • A53Delivery risk: AmberGate: pending

    Protect water supplies and low-income households

    Existing action A53, assessed at the same scope.

    Provisional single-reviewer desk assessment, 6 October 2026.

    Who and where
    Households in areas of England designated as seriously water stressed, especially in the South East, East and Midlands, where the framework projects deficits to remain. (from the action record) Jurisdiction: England.
    Result so far
    Range if completed: 18.0–21.0 out of 30 (equal weights; not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co))
    Funded now (baseline)
    Builds on announced policy: the January 2026 white paper commits companies to smart meters for 50% of homes and businesses by 2030 and to changes in tariff structures, and companies in seriously water-stressed areas may already meter compulsorily (Southern Water did so in 2010–15). Metering every home in those areas with a protected social tariff is a UK Facts proposal, not government policy. (from the action record)
    The change assessed (marginal)
    Target a defined unmetered cohort in designated stressed areas; protect affordability and distinguish use from leakage. (from the 6 October review)
    What the evidence supports—and the next decision

    Metering evidence from one company is not a national effect estimate. Affordability protection changes both costs and distribution.

    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
    Define an unmetered cohort in a water-stressed area and a funded social-tariff design beyond scheduled rollout.
    Test whether it works
    Weather-adjusted household consumption, bills and hardship with a comparison design; distinguish customer use from network leakage.
    Establish the cost
    Meters, installation, maintenance, billing, administration and tariff support; show who funds cross-subsidy.
    Protect against harm
    Protect essential medical use, large low-income families and people who cannot readily reduce consumption.

    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 Protect water supplies and low-income households: 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: Problem scale judged from the linked domain evidence; not a population estimate of those helped.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Target a defined unmetered cohort in designated stressed areas; protect affordability and distinguish use from leakage. This is a provisional marginal-change judgement, to confirm against commissioned delivery.

    3. Confidence in the proposed action (Ev)2 of 3 — Relevant evaluated evidence with limitations

      Reviewer’s reason: English household-panel evidence supports lower consumption after metering; the proposed tariff package is not separately evaluated.

    4. Expected incremental benefit (Bn)2 of 3 — Material for the target population

      Reviewer’s reason: Magnitude judgement for the defined target group, not a quantified national effect. Target a defined unmetered cohort in designated stressed areas; protect affordability and distinguish use from leakage.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Large low-income or medically vulnerable households can lose without protection; savings are not all new water supply.

    6. Incremental affordability (Co)Not yet assessed

      Reviewer’s reason: Unknown: the proposed increment has not been costed and matched to an approved affordable allocation in this review. Existing programme envelopes are not that allocation.

    7. Delivery capacity (Ca)2 of 3 — Stretched but plausibly obtainable

      Reviewer’s reason: Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline; do not automatically generalise one company estimate.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Distribution assessed against the target group and the burdens described here: Large low-income or medically vulnerable households can lose without protection; savings are not all new water supply.

    9. Meaningful first outcome (Ti)3 of 3 — Within one year

      Reviewer’s reason: Timing judgement concerns the first meaningful outcome in: Litres per person/day, arrears and essential-use hardship over 12–24 months; tariff take-up. It does not imply all long-term benefits arrive then.

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

      Reviewer’s reason: Compare the extra cohort with the committed rollout; cost meters and tariff protection before proceeding. Owner: Water companies, regulator and government within relevant English powers.

    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: 18.0–21.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Evidence doubled: Range if completed: 18.2–20.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Scale doubled: Range if completed: 18.2–20.9 out of 30. Not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co). Funding gate: not passed.
    • Cost ignored (the funding gate still applies): Range if completed: 20.0–20.0 out of 30. Not yet assessed: incremental affordability (Co). The missing criteria carry no weight here, so the ends meet; the record is still incomplete. 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 risk and gate

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

    Review’s reason: Incremental lifetime costs and funding not established. Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline; do not automatically generalise one company estimate.

    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 cost, funding, scope and capacity 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.

    • Meters, installation and a protected social tariff in seriously water-stressed areas (not costed; C-A53-METERING)

    Still to cost: Incremental lifetime costs and funding not established. Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline; do not automatically generalise one company estimate.

    Funding status: not identified.

    Owner, powers and capacity

    Proposed owner: Water companies, regulator and government within relevant English powers. (proposed, unverified).

    Powers: needs a decision or allocation. Capacity: unverified.

    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:
    Defra and the water regulator (Ofwat, until the single regulator in the January 2026 white paper replaces it), with water companies in areas designated as seriously water stressed (action record)
    Scotland:
    not assessed
    Wales:
    not assessed
    Northern Ireland:
    not assessed

    Water policy is devolved. Wales sets its own metering and charging rules (Welsh Government, with Ofwat’s successor for Welsh companies); Scottish Water is publicly owned and charges through council tax bands; Northern Ireland has no domestic water charges. None was reviewed here.

    Dependencies, safeguards and risks

    Depends on: Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline; do not automatically generalise one company estimate.

    Safeguards

    • cost meters and tariff protection before proceeding (proposed, not yet specified)
    • Require a funded protection design and additional rollout baseline (proposed, not yet specified)
    • protect affordability and distinguish use from leakage (proposed, not yet specified)

    Risks and residual harms: Large low-income or medically vulnerable households can lose without protection; savings are not all new water supply.

    Monitoring and measured results

    Metric: Litres per person/day, arrears and essential-use hardship over 12–24 months; tariff take-up.

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

    Measures already on the domain page

    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: Litres per person/day, arrears and essential-use hardship over 12–24 months; tariff take-up.

    English household-panel evidence supports lower consumption after metering; the proposed tariff package is not separately evaluated.

    Sources: southampton.ac.uk (P-SOTON-UMP-2018)

    SWOT points it addresses

    Review record

    Assessment status: Provisional single-reviewer desk assessment, 6 October 2026.

    Reviewer: Original assessment author (name not supplied). Reviewed: 6 October 2026.

    Carried from the earlier domain review (C record): must be calibrated jointly with the G/W/E/NG/NW/NE records before any combined comparison.

    Decision route: Compare the extra cohort with the committed rollout; cost meters and tariff protection before proceeding.

    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.

Decision briefs

  • Test what extra tax checks on small businesses actually collect before paying for more of them
  • Follow the asylum accommodation money, then decide the 2029 renewal on cost per suitable night and outcomes

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.

Decision briefPublic-policy proposalReviewed 2026-10-04

Test what extra tax checks on small businesses actually collect before paying for more of them

The thread: issue, evidence, action

  1. Issue Weakness: The estimated tax gap was £59.2bn (6.4% of tax due). £20.8bn came from failure to take reasonable care and £9.3bn from error; £36.7bn arose among small businesses. Also: threat, strength
  2. Evidence Tax gap, share of tax due
  3. Action Collect more tax through specific, auditable compliance work
Decision required
HMRC runs a randomised trial of warning letters and targeted checks in one small-business segment where income is self-reported, and publishes the extra cash collected against a control group — before money is committed to, or revenue scored for, any compliance package beyond the 2024 one.
Who and where
Small businesses filing self-assessment or company returns in the chosen segment, and everyone who relies on public services. Applies in: UK.
Accountable body
HM Revenue & Customs, with HM Treasury
Intervention
Randomly send warning letters or open checks for one small-business segment, with a control group.
Best evidence, and where it applies
A randomised audit experiment in Denmark found evasion of 0.3% on income reported by third parties but 37% on self-reported income, and that warning letters changed what people reported.Studied in: About 42,800 Danish taxpayers (Audits of 2006 income; letters in 2008).How closely the comparison transfers to this decision: Denmark — partial.
Extra cost of this change
Capital: none identified in the brief.Recurring: none identified in the brief.One-off or mixed: Staff, letters, checks, appeals and overheads for the trial and any further package — Not yet costed; Independent evaluation — not yet established.
Funding
Not funded: no funding route identified yet.Committed to this change: none.Possible source, not an award: none identified.Unfunded: Trial cost not yet estimated; any scaled package would need its own funding decision and an OBR-certified costing.
Savings and wider benefits
Not yet specified: no cashable saving or avoided cost has been costed for this change. Expected outcomes are listed one by one in the research appendix and are never added together or counted as money available.
First 90-day step
HMRC publishes the segment, the forecast assumption for it, the randomisation design and the outcome measure (cash beyond forecast)The proposed first milestone; a 90-day date is not yet specified. Owner: HMRC. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.
Twelve-month milestone
Not yet specified.Time to a first useful result: Letter effects within one filing cycle; enquiry outcomes and cash over two to three years.
Outcome, and when to scale or stop
Measure: Change in reported income and tax due after letters, against control.Scale if: Cash beyond the forecast, net of the trial’s full cost including overheads, is clearly positive and wrongful challenges are not rising.Stop if: Cash collected falls well short of the costing, or upheld appeals and complaints rise.
Main trade-off
Compliance staff on checks are not answering taxpayers’ queries, and honest firms that are checked bear real costs; the extra yield to more enforcement is not known.
Source and review date
Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence from a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark (NBER Working Paper 15769; published in Econometrica 79(3), 2011) (2010 (working paper); 2011 (Econometrica)); Taxing large businesses (HC 1647, Session 2024–26) (27 February 2026). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

An editorial proposal by UK Facts for discussion, not government policy. Records: A19 · effects E-A19-RECEIPTS, E-A19-TAXPAYERS · costs C-A19-PACKAGE

Research appendix: study design, effect sizes and limits, alternatives, full costing, international comparisons and how we would know

1.The change, in plain words

Test what extra tax checks on small businesses actually collect before paying for more of them

2.The decision requested

Decision
Commission a randomised trial in one named small-business segment (for example self-assessment trading income where the 2026 tax-gap estimates show failure to take reasonable care), fund it from HMRC’s existing compliance budget, and require cash collected beyond the forecast — not “yield protected” — as the test for scaling.
Accountable institution
HM Revenue & Customs, with HM Treasury
Geography
UK
Powers
Existing HMRC compliance and information powers; no new legislation for letters and enquiries. Scotland and Wales income tax rates differ but HMRC administers them.
Delivery partners
HM Treasury; Office for Budget Responsibility (certification of any scaled costing); Tax agents and representative bodies (guidance and burden); Independent evaluator

3.Who it is for, and what changes beyond today

Target population
Small businesses filing self-assessment or company returns in the chosen segment, and everyone who relies on public services.
Eligibility
One segment where income is mainly self-reported and the tax-gap estimates attribute most of the gap to error or failure to take reasonable care; randomised between letter, check and control groups.
Scale
A trial sized by HMRC for statistical power within existing compliance capacity; not a national roll-out.
Baseline
Tax gap £59.2bn (6.4% of liabilities) in 2024–25; small businesses £36.7bn of it; by behaviour, failure to take reasonable care £20.8bn and error £9.3bn, evasion £7.1bn. The Autumn Budget 2024 package — £1.4bn over five years for 5,000 compliance staff and £262m for 1,800 debt staff — is expected to raise £6.5bn a year by 2029–30 and is already in the forecasts.

Source: HM Revenue and Customs, Measuring tax gaps 2026 edition: tax gap estimates for 2024 to 2025 (Tables 1.3 and 7.1); HM Treasury, Autumn Budget 2024 (HC 295), print version (Paragraphs 2.16–2.17, 5.11–5.13)

Change beyond existing law or funding
HMRC already runs compliance work and the 2024 package is funded and scored. The change is a controlled trial that measures cash collected beyond what the forecast assumes, before any further package is costed — so the same revenue is not counted twice.

4.How it would work

Do: Randomly send warning letters or open checks for one small-business segment, with a control group Changing: so that reported income rises where it is under-reported, and the extra cash can be measured against the forecast

  • Net tax receipts beyond the forecast from the segment

    Hypothesis to testEffect record E-A19-RECEIPTS

    HMRC could not tell the NAO the marginal return to further investment; the trial measures it.

  • Costs to compliant taxpayers wrongly challenged

    Hypothesis to testEffect record E-A19-TAXPAYERS

    Measured through enquiries closed with no change, appeals upheld and complaints.

Outcomes are kept separate and never added into one impact figure.

5.Best evidence

  • Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence from a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark (NBER Working Paper 15769; published in Econometrica 79(3), 2011)

    Author or institution:
    Kleven, Knudsen, Kreiner, Pedersen and Saez (university economists, with the Danish tax administration)
    Published:
    2010 (working paper); 2011 (Econometrica)
    Evaluation period:
    Audits of 2006 income; letters in 2008
    Design:
    Randomised field experiment
    Sample or population:
    About 42,800 Danish taxpayers
    Effect and uncertainty:
    Evasion 0.3% on third-party-reported income versus 37% on self-reported income; a prior audit raised next-year reported income by about 45% of the audit adjustment; letters raised the share adjusting income by 1.65 points from 13.37%.
    Limits:
    Danish individuals, not UK small businesses or VAT; short-run effects; extensive third-party reporting in Denmark.

    Where: Abstract; pp.2–3, 28–31. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

  • Taxing large businesses (HC 1647, Session 2024–26)

    Author or institution:
    National Audit Office
    Published:
    27 February 2026
    Evaluation period:
    2017–18 to 2024–25
    Design:
    Audit of HMRC’s large business directorate
    Sample or population:
    About 2,000 large business groups
    Effect and uncertainty:
    Compliance yield of £15.8bn in 2024–25 is revenue “collected or protected”, not cash; about £95 per £1 of staff pay but about £58 per £1 with overheads; HMRC could not say what marginal return further investment would bring.
    Limits:
    Large businesses only; average returns are not marginal returns.

    Where: Paragraphs 1.12 and 3.6. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

6.Alternatives, counter-evidence and who loses

Closest feasible alternative
Simplify rules and improve guidance and digital records for small firms (error and failure to take reasonable care are over half the gap), rather than more enforcement.
Strongest counter-evidence
Returns diminish as easier cases are worked; much “yield” is revenue protected that never arrives as cash; wrongly challenged taxpayers bear real costs.

Source: National Audit Office, Taxing large businesses (HC 1647, Session 2024–26) (Paragraph 3.6)

Distributional effects
Falls on non-compliant small businesses; compliant competitors gain; small firms checked in error bear time and adviser costs.
Main downside
A trial delays scaling by at least a filing cycle, and a weak result could be read as “compliance doesn’t pay” when it shows only this segment’s return.

The options compared, including current policy

  • The proposal

    Randomised letter-and-check trial in one small-business segment, then scale only on cash beyond forecast

    Who is reached
    One segment of small businesses
    Evidence
    Danish randomised experiment; NAO on marginal returns
    Likely outcome and timing
    Letter effects within a year; cash over two to three years
    Cost and funding
    Not yet costed; HMRC compliance budget
    Main trade-off
    Slower than funding staff now

  • Current policy

    Current policy: the funded Autumn Budget 2024 package (5,000 compliance and 1,800 debt staff)

    Who is reached
    All segments HMRC targets
    Evidence
    Scored by the OBR; returns not yet measured
    Likely outcome and timing
    £6.5bn a year by 2029–30 (already in forecasts)
    Cost and funding
    £1.4bn and £262m over five years, plus £154m for systems; funded
    Main trade-off
    Marginal return unknown; cannot be counted again

  • Alternative

    Fund a further compliance package now on average-return assumptions

    Who is reached
    Taxpayers HMRC selects
    Evidence
    Average returns overstate marginal returns (NAO)
    Likely outcome and timing
    Uncertain; staff take time to become productive
    Cost and funding
    Would need new funding
    Main trade-off
    Risk of scoring revenue that never arrives

  • Alternative

    Simplify rules and support record-keeping for small firms

    Who is reached
    Small businesses making errors
    Evidence
    Error and failure to take reasonable care are over half the gap
    Likely outcome and timing
    Slow; effect size unknown
    Cost and funding
    Not costed
    Main trade-off
    Does not deter deliberate under-reporting

7.What other countries or the devolved nations show

Country lesson · Denmark, Audits of 2006 income (2007); warning letters in 2008

Random tax audits and warning letters in Denmark

Evidence: Experimental or quasi-experimental evaluationPartial match: some conditions differ

What was changed
The Danish tax authority randomly audited half of a sample of about 42,800 taxpayers in full, and the next year sent randomly assigned letters warning that returns had a 100% or 50% chance of audit.
Study design and population
Randomised field experiment About 42,800 Danish individual taxpayers (25,020 employees, 17,764 self-employed)
Measured outcome there
Detected evasion was 0.3% of income reported by third parties (employers, banks) but 37% of self-reported income. A prior audit raised next-year reported income by about 45% of the audit adjustment; warning letters raised the share adjusting their reported income by 1.65 points from 13.37%.
Cost status
Audit costs per case not reported in the paper; the yield of a national programme was not estimated.
What failed or remains uncertain
Letter effects were measured over one year only; where income is third-party reported, audits found almost nothing, so extra audits there add cost without yield.
Why the UK differs
The UK’s tax gap is dominated by small businesses (£36.7bn of £59.2bn in 2024–25) and by failure to take reasonable care and error rather than evasion; Danish third-party reporting is more extensive; the experiment measured individuals, not companies or VAT.
First change required here
Before funding more staff, HMRC randomises a letter-and-audit trial in one small-business segment with self-reported income and publishes cash collected beyond the forecast against a control group.

Not a UK forecast: the effect above was measured in that place and population. Source: National Bureau of Economic Research, Unwilling or Unable to Cheat? Evidence from a Tax Audit Experiment in Denmark (NBER Working Paper 15769; published in Econometrica 79(3), 2011) (Abstract; pp.2–3, 28–31). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

8.What delivery needs first

  • staff — Trained compliance staff, who take time to become productive; the 2024 recruitment is still being absorbed. (Scarce resource shared with other priorities; owner: HMRC)
  • data — A segment definition and a forecast baseline for it, so cash beyond forecast can be identified. (Requirement; owner: HMRC with the OBR)
  • law — A lawful basis, ethics review and taxpayer safeguards for randomising letters and enquiries. (Requirement; owner: HMRC)

9.What it would cost

How the cost is built up: Letters + checks (staff time including overheads) + appeals + evaluation; benefit counted only as cash collected beyond the forecast, net of repayments, never as “yield protected”.

  • Staff, letters, checks, appeals and overheads for the trial and any further package

    One small-business segment beyond the Autumn Budget 2024 package

    Not yet costed (ledger C-A19-PACKAGE)

    one-off revenue; price year not stated; One filing cycle plus follow-up; Not yet established

  • Independent evaluation

    Design, analysis and publication

    Not yet established one evaluation

    one-off revenue; price year not stated; Trial period; Not yet established

10.Who pays, and what is missing

Programme envelope (a possible route, not an award)
None identified
Allocation committed to this change
None
Remaining gap
Trial cost not yet estimated; any scaled package would need its own funding decision and an OBR-certified costing.
Proposed financing
HMRC’s existing compliance budget for the trial. The £6.5bn a year from the 2024 package is already counted in the forecasts and cannot pay for anything new.
Responsible payer
central government
Budget displaced
Other HMRC compliance or customer-service work during the trial.

11.First milestone and time to a useful result

HMRC publishes the segment, the forecast assumption for it, the randomisation design and the outcome measure (cash beyond forecast) (Owner: HMRC. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.)

Time to first useful result: Letter effects within one filing cycle; enquiry outcomes and cash over two to three years.

What could delay it: Compliance staff are committed to the 2024 package Disputes take years to settle, delaying cash results

12.How we would know

Baseline
Tax gap estimate for the chosen segment (2024–25) and the forecast cash from it.
Comparison
Randomised control group in the same segment.
Leading indicator
Change in reported income and tax due after letters, against control.
Follow-up
Cash collected at one, two and three years, net of repayments; enquiries closed with no change; appeals upheld.
Continue if
Cash beyond the forecast, net of the trial’s full cost including overheads, is clearly positive and wrongful challenges are not rising.
Adapt if
Letters work but checks do not (or the reverse): scale the cheaper element only.
Stop if
Cash collected falls well short of the costing, or upheld appeals and complaints rise.
Thresholds
Not yet set: A minimum detectable effect and a cost-recovery threshold should be set in the trial protocol from HMRC’s segment data before launch.

What is not yet known, and how to find out

  • What the trial costs, including overheads and appeals (cost)Next step: HMRC to cost the protocol from its unit costs for letters and enquiries.Scope: One segment, one filing cycle plus follow-up · Data or quotes needed: Staff time per letter and per enquiry; overhead rates; appeal rates · Who can estimate it: HMRC
  • The marginal cash return to extra compliance work in small businesses (effect)Next step: Run the randomised trial described here.Defensible route: bounded pilot
  • How much the tax-gap estimate for the segment overlaps what the forecast already assumes (data)Next step: HMRC and the OBR to publish the forecast assumption for the segment before the trial.

Sources last checked 4 October 2026 · Owner: Evidence editor (James Harris) · Next check: the first trigger: HMRC measuring tax gaps (annual).

Decision briefPublic-policy proposalReviewed 2026-10-04

Follow the asylum accommodation money, then decide the 2029 renewal on cost per suitable night and outcomes

The thread: issue, evidence, action

  1. Issue Weakness (Public procurement): 34 of 172 rated government major projects were Red (successful delivery appears unachievable, with major issues that do not appear manageable at that stage), 16 ratings were withheld and 1 project was not yet rated. Also: opportunityHow acting here reaches it: Buying measurable results and managing contracts through delivery is meant to bring more major projects out of Red, the ratings the procurement page records for public money spent through contracts.
  2. Evidence Government major projects rated Red
  3. Action Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery
Decision required
The Home Office publishes the money chain for its asylum accommodation contracts — budget, providers, hotels versus dispersed housing, cost and standards — and decides what replaces the contracts ending in August 2029 by comparing an outcome-based re-let with council or public delivery on whole-life cost.
Who and where
People seeking asylum who are accommodated by the Home Office, and the communities where they are housed. Applies in: UK.
Accountable body
Home Office
Intervention
Publish the chain from budget to provider to type of accommodation, and compare replacement models on cost per suitable night and outcomes.
Best evidence, and where it applies
The NAO found the 10-year contract estimate rose from £4.5bn to £15.3bn, hotels held about 35% of people but 76% of cost, and the nine KPIs had not been revised since the contracts began.Studied in: Home Office asylum accommodation contracts (2019 to January 2025).How closely the comparison transfers to this decision: England and Wales (within-UK case) — partial.
Extra cost of this change
Capital: none identified in the brief.Recurring: Current contracts, estimated whole-term cost (historic estimate, for context) — £15,300,000,000 contract set.One-off or mixed: Commercial staff, contract oversight, transition and supplier compliance for the renewal — Not yet costed.
Funding
Not funded yet: a possible funding route exists, but nothing is allocated to this change.Committed to this change: none.Possible source, not an award: none identified.Unfunded: The transition cost of any council or public model is not established.
Savings and wider benefits
Not yet specified: no cashable saving or avoided cost has been costed for this change. Expected outcomes are listed one by one in the research appendix and are never added together or counted as money available.
First 90-day step
The Home Office publishes the first annual money chain (spend by provider and accommodation type, cost per night, KPI results) and its options appraisal scope for the 2029 replacementThe proposed first milestone; a 90-day date is not yet specified. Owner: Home Office. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.
Twelve-month milestone
Not yet specified.Time to a first useful result: The first chain within a year; the renewal decision before the replacement procurement begins.
Outcome, and when to scale or stop
Measure: Hotel share of people and of cost, published annually.Scale if: Published costs per suitable night fall and standards and move-on improve.Stop if: A model cannot provide enough suitable places without hotels — then keep a re-let with revised measures.
Main trade-off
A council or public model could cut hotel use but needs housing and staff that do not yet exist; a re-let keeps capacity but repeats the incentives that produced hotel dependence.
Source and review date
The Home Office’s asylum accommodation contracts (HC 874) (7 May 2025). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

An editorial proposal by UK Facts for discussion, not government policy. Records: A23 · effects E-A23-SERVICE · costs C-A23-CAPABILITY

Research appendix: study design, effect sizes and limits, alternatives, full costing, international comparisons and how we would know

1.The change, in plain words

Follow the asylum accommodation money, then decide the 2029 renewal on cost per suitable night and outcomes

2.The decision requested

Decision
Publish an annual money chain for the asylum accommodation contracts and, before the replacement procurement passes its Strategic Outline Case, apply the public interest test (in force from April 2027) and compare an outcome-based re-let with council-led and public delivery on cost per suitable night, standards and move-on.
Accountable institution
Home Office
Geography
UK
Powers
The Home Office’s statutory asylum-support duty and its contract-management powers; the Procurement Act 2023 for the replacement; PPN 024 for the public interest test.
Delivery partners
Cabinet Office (Government Commercial Function); HM Treasury; Councils and devolved governments; Current providers (Clearsprings, Mears, Serco); National Audit Office

3.Who it is for, and what changes beyond today

Target population
People seeking asylum who are accommodated by the Home Office, and the communities where they are housed.
Eligibility
The seven regional Asylum Accommodation and Support Contracts (January 2019 to 31 August 2029) and their replacement.
Scale
The whole contract set: £15.3bn estimated over ten years.
Baseline
Contract estimate up from £4.5bn to £15.3bn over ten years; £1.7bn spent in the first seven months of 2024–25, of which hotels £1.3bn (76%) while holding about 35% of people; 222 hotels on 1 January 2025 (348 a year earlier). Nine KPIs, not revised since the contracts began; £4m of deductions since 2019–20. Contracts can be ended on 270 days’ notice, with supplier costs payable if ended within seven years of mobilisation.

Source: National Audit Office, The Home Office’s asylum accommodation contracts (HC 874) (Paragraphs 1.14, 1.18, 2.2–2.6, 4, 8, 10; Figure 2)

Change beyond existing law or funding
The NAO has published the chain once; the Home Office does not report it annually, and the replacement model has not been compared with public alternatives on whole-life cost. The change adds an annual published chain and a public-versus-re-let comparison before the procurement route is fixed.

4.How it would work

Do: Publish the chain from budget to provider to type of accommodation, and compare replacement models on cost per suitable night and outcomes Changing: so that the renewal rewards suitable, lower-cost housing and timely move-on rather than hotel nights

  • Contracts delivering the specified service on time and near cost

    Hypothesis to testEffect record E-A23-SERVICE

    Recommended by research and audit; no evaluation estimates the effect of outcome-based renewal on asylum accommodation.

  • Lower cost per person per night through less hotel use

    Hypothesis to test

    Depends mostly on the number of people needing accommodation, which turns on asylum decision speed (the immigration brief), not on the contract alone.

Outcomes are kept separate and never added into one impact figure.

5.Best evidence

  • The Home Office’s asylum accommodation contracts (HC 874)

    Author or institution:
    National Audit Office
    Published:
    7 May 2025
    Evaluation period:
    2019 to January 2025
    Design:
    Value-for-money audit
    Sample or population:
    Home Office asylum accommodation contracts
    Effect and uncertainty:
    Contract estimate £4.5bn rising to £15.3bn; hotels 76% of cost and about 35% of people (2024–25, first seven months); nine KPIs unchanged since the start; large sites without performance measures.
    Limits:
    An audit, not an evaluation of alternative models; cost per person per night by type was not given in this report.

    Where: Summary paragraphs 1–12; paragraphs 1.14, 1.18, 2.2–2.6; Figure 2. Affiliation is provenance, not proof of quality.

6.Alternatives, counter-evidence and who loses

Closest feasible alternative
Extend or re-let the current contracts on similar terms with revised KPIs.
Strongest counter-evidence
Most of the cost growth came from the number of people needing accommodation, which contracts do not control; bringing services in-house has not guaranteed better results (probation was reunified in 2021 and its performance worsened).

Source: National Audit Office, Building an effective and resilient probation service (HC 1354, Session 2024–2026) (Key findings paragraph 5)

Distributional effects
People in hotels and the areas hosting large sites are most affected; councils taking on provision gain control but bear delivery risk; incumbent providers may lose.
Main downside
A switch of model during high demand risks a capacity gap, which would push people back into hotels.

The options compared, including current policy

  • The proposal

    Publish the money chain; compare an outcome-based re-let with council and public delivery before 2029

    Who is reached
    People in asylum accommodation; host communities; taxpayers
    Evidence
    NAO audit of the contracts; probation case for in-house limits
    Likely outcome and timing
    Chain within a year; new model from September 2029
    Cost and funding
    Appraisal cost not established; Home Office budget
    Main trade-off
    Transition risk during high demand

  • Current policy

    Current policy: contracts run to August 2029 with nine unchanged KPIs

    Who is reached
    Same
    Evidence
    NAO: KPIs unchanged, hotels dominate cost
    Likely outcome and timing
    No change to 2029
    Cost and funding
    £15.3bn estimated over ten years
    Main trade-off
    Hotel dependence persists

  • Alternative

    End the contracts early on 270 days’ notice

    Who is reached
    Same
    Evidence
    Contract terms (NAO Figure 2)
    Likely outcome and timing
    Within a year of notice
    Cost and funding
    Supplier costs payable if within seven years of mobilisation
    Main trade-off
    Termination costs and capacity risk

7.What other countries or the devolved nations show

Country lesson · England and Wales (within-UK case), Contracts ended December 2020; reunified in the public sector June 2021

Outsourcing probation, then bringing it back in-house, in England and Wales

Evidence: Expert or audit recommendationPartial match: some conditions differ

What was changed
Supervision of many offenders was contracted to private Community Rehabilitation Companies under the Transforming Rehabilitation reforms; after poor results the contracts were ended early and all offender management returned to the public Probation Service.
Study design and population
Audit reviews of an implemented reform (no controlled comparison) People on probation in England and Wales
Measured outcome there
Outsourcing: at least £467m paid above the original contract terms and contracts ended 14 months early; reoffences per reoffender rose 22% while the share reoffending fell 2.5 points. Insourcing: by 2024–25 the reunified service met 7 of 27 targets (26%), down from 50% in its first year.
Cost status
Historic: extra contract payments of at least £467m; probation spending £1.45bn in 2023–24.
What failed or remains uncertain
Both models disappointed. Bringing a service in-house did not by itself restore performance: staffing shortfalls and workloads mattered more than ownership.
Why the UK differs
A case from within the UK, but probation is a statutory public-protection service with a single public employer available; for asylum accommodation the alternatives (councils, housing associations, the Home Office itself) would have to build capacity first.
First change required here
Any renewal decision compares a re-let with in-house or council delivery on whole-life cost and on the capacity the public option would need, rather than on ownership alone.

Not a UK forecast: the effect above was measured in that place and population. Source: National Audit Office, Transforming Rehabilitation: Progress review (HC 1986, Session 2017–2019) (Paragraphs 1.4, 15, 19, 20); National Audit Office, Building an effective and resilient probation service (HC 1354, Session 2024–2026) (Key findings paragraph 5). Reviewed 2026-10-04.

8.What delivery needs first

  • dependency — The number of people needing accommodation, set by asylum decision and appeal times (the immigration brief). (Genuine veto: nothing proceeds without it; owner: Home Office)
  • infrastructure — Suitable dispersed housing in areas willing to host it. (Scarce resource shared with other priorities; owner: Councils and providers)
  • procurement — The replacement procurement timetable: a decision before the Strategic Outline Case so the public interest test applies. (Requirement; owner: Home Office and Cabinet Office)
  • staff — Contract-management and commercial staff to run outcome measures. (Scarce resource shared with other priorities; owner: Home Office)

9.What it would cost

How the cost is built up: Annual chain publication (analyst time) + options appraisal for the replacement (commercial and finance time) + transition costs of the chosen model; the accommodation itself is priced in the appraisal per suitable night.

  • Commercial staff, contract oversight, transition and supplier compliance for the renewal

    The asylum accommodation contracts and their replacement

    Not yet costed (ledger C-A23-CAPABILITY)

    mixed; price year not stated; 2026–27 to 2029–30; Not yet established

  • Current contracts, estimated whole-term cost (historic estimate, for context)

    Seven regional contracts, January 2019 to August 2029

    £15,300,000,000 contract set

    recurring; as estimated by the Home Office, reported May 2025 prices; 2019–2029; Historic cost

    Context only: the spending the renewal decision governs, not a cost of this proposal.

    Source: National Audit Office, The Home Office’s asylum accommodation contracts (HC 874) (Paragraph 4)

10.Who pays, and what is missing

Programme envelope (a possible route, not an award)
None identified
Allocation committed to this change
None
Remaining gap
The transition cost of any council or public model is not established.
Proposed financing
The Home Office asylum support budget already pays for accommodation; the appraisal and publication use its commercial budget.
Responsible payer
central government, councils
Budget displaced
Within the Home Office budget; councils taking on provision would need new funding rather than absorbing it.

11.First milestone and time to a useful result

The Home Office publishes the first annual money chain (spend by provider and accommodation type, cost per night, KPI results) and its options appraisal scope for the 2029 replacement (Owner: Home Office. Proposed by UK Facts, not an official deadline.)

Time to first useful result: The first chain within a year; the renewal decision before the replacement procurement begins.

What could delay it: Asylum demand stays high, limiting room to change model Councils lack housing or staff to bid The procurement is fixed before the public interest test applies in April 2027

12.How we would know

Baseline
NAO figures for 2024–25 (hotels 76% of cost, about 35% of people; £15.3bn ten-year estimate).
Comparison
Cost per suitable night and move-on times under the current contracts versus each replacement option, appraised on whole-life cost.
Leading indicator
Hotel share of people and of cost, published annually.
Follow-up
Each year to 2029, then the first two years of the replacement.
Continue if
Published costs per suitable night fall and standards and move-on improve.
Adapt if
Costs fall but standards or move-on worsen: revise the outcome measures.
Stop if
A model cannot provide enough suitable places without hotels — then keep a re-let with revised measures.
Thresholds
Not yet set: Cost-per-night benchmarks should come from the options appraisal and the Home Office business case.

What is not yet known, and how to find out

  • What council-led or public delivery would cost per suitable night, including transition (cost)Next step: Include it in the options appraisal with councils’ quotes for dispersed housing and support.Scope: Replacement for the seven regional contracts · Data or quotes needed: Council and housing-association quotes; staffing; transition costs · Who can estimate it: Home Office with councils
  • Cost per person per night for hotels and dispersed housing (data)Next step: Home Office to publish it in the annual chain; figures quoted in the press were not verified at source for this brief.
  • Whether outcome-based contracts reduce hotel use (effect)Next step: Pilot outcome measures in one region before the national re-let.Defensible route: bounded pilot

Sources last checked 4 October 2026 · Owner: Evidence editor (James Harris) · Next check: the first trigger: Home Office asylum accommodation contract changes or the 2029 renewal decision.

More decision briefs on other pages

What it would take

The order things have to happen in, who pays, and the effects and appraisals on record.

The order things have to happen in

  1. First, the prerequisite

    Name the part of the gap and what forecasts already assume for it

    Owner: HMRC with HM Treasury

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  2. Then, the decision

    Fund a pilot with an independently scrutinised costing of net cash

    Owner: HM Treasury; OBR certifies

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  3. Then, delivery

    Publish outcome baselines for a set of renewing contracts

    Owner: Cabinet Office with departments

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

  4. Finally, the measured outcome

    Cash collected and contract milestones reported each year

    Owner: HMRC; NAO; contracting authorities

    No date: the timing depends on the steps before it.

Who pays, and what is still missing

Cost, committed funding and the remaining gap for the same scope and years. A programme envelope is not an award to a project; a proposal is not committed money. None of these costs has been established yet, so no total is shown.

Cost and funding ledger

  • HMRC staff, training, systems, appeals and overheads for a further compliance package

    A19 · administration · not costed

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    central government
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    —
    Gap
    Not established

  • Commercial staff, contract oversight, transition, maintenance and supplier compliance

    A23 · administration · not costed

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    central government, councils
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    —
    Gap
    Not established

  • Meters, installation and a protected social tariff in seriously water-stressed areas

    A53 · capital · not costed

    Amount
    Not yet costed
    Who pays
    bill-payers, households
    Committed
    None identified
    Proposed, not committed
    —
    Gap
    Not established

“Not yet costed” means no defensible cost has been found — not that the action is free. Lifetime benefits, benefit-cost ratios and forecast savings are never shown here as money available to spend.

Effects on record, with evidence ratings (4 records)

What the evidence says each action changes

Effects on record — these measure different outcomes, so they are not drawn on one scale
ActionOutcome and areaEffectCompared withEvidence
Collect more tax through specific, auditable compliance workNet tax receipts beyond forecast Public finances and taxDirection plausible; size not established—plausible spillover; limited confidence; United KingdomHMRC could not tell the NAO the marginal return to further investment; average yield ratios overstate it, and yield is not all cash.
Collect more tax through specific, auditable compliance workCosts to compliant taxpayers wrongly challenged Public finances and tax · harmSize not established—plausible spillover; limited confidence; United KingdomA risk to monitor through upheld disputes and service measures; not quantified.
Buy measurable results and manage contracts through deliveryContracts delivering the specified service on time and near cost Public service deliveryDirection plausible; size not established—plausible spillover; limited confidence; United KingdomRecommended by research and audit; no evaluation estimates the effect.
Buy measurable results and manage contracts through deliveryDefence equipment programmes delivered closer to budget and schedule Defence and securityDirection plausible; size not established—plausible spillover; limited confidence; United KingdomAudit and expert recommendations, not an evaluation: no source estimates how much better contract management would reduce overruns, and policy changes cause some of them.

How we would know

Projected public water supply deficit by 2055, without further action; Reservoir storage, England; Tax gap, share of tax due; and 1 more.

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

Measured results

What each option would be judged on, and the latest value of the measures already on this page. A measure moving is not proof that an option caused it.

Where the ideas come from

Research, counter-evidence and methods (13 sources)
  • Measuring tax gaps 2026 edition: tax gap estimates for 2024 to 2025 — HM Revenue and Customs, 2026-06-23.Official statistics; United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: An estimate of tax not paid, including error, insolvency and legal disputes — not a measure of what extra enforcement could collect.
  • Taxing large businesses (HC 1647, Session 2024–26) — National Audit Office, 2026-02-27.Value-for-money audit of HMRC’s large business directorate; About 2,000 large business groups; about 2,500 full-time-equivalent HMRC staff; United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: Large businesses only. Yield is skewed by a few very large interventions and is not a measure of cash that would be raised by expanding enforcement.
  • HMRC performance update: 2026 to 2027 quarter 1 (13 August 2026) — HM Revenue and Customs, 2026-08-13.Corporate report (Burnham government). Full text checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: “£10 billion of additional tax revenue per year by 2029 to 2030”; plans to “recruit and train 5,500 new compliance caseworkers”, “more than 2,400 since Autumn Budget 2024”; “we have recruited a new team of 350 criminal investigators”; 2026-27 yield aim with “at least a quarter of it to come from work focused on stopping” non-compliance; tax-debt ratio.
  • Autumn Budget 2024 (HC 295): “Closing the tax gap” — HM Treasury, 2024-10-30.Budget document; United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: The £6.5bn is already in the fiscal forecasts, so it cannot fund anything new. No separate HMRC investment amount is stated in this section.
  • The role of procurement in delivering mission-led government — Institute for Government (Ben Paxton, Nick Davies), 2025-09-23.Interview-based analysis with recommendations; United Kingdom (mainly central government). Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: Qualitative: no estimate of savings or service effects. It does not contain a £461bn figure — the site’s £461.3bn whole-public-sector total comes from PESA 2026 (P-HMT-PESA-2026).
  • A new vision for water (white paper) — Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs, 2026-01-20.White paper (Starmer government); England and Wales. Full text checked (Read in the PDF “Defra Water White Paper 2026 (with correction slip)”.), 2026-10-04. Limits: Government policy intentions; most measures need the new regulator or legislation.
  • National Framework for Water Resources 2025: water for growth, nature and a resilient future — Environment Agency, 2025-06-17.Official planning framework (modelled scenarios); England. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: Modelled scenarios of population, climate and environmental needs; “up to” is the top of a range. England only.
  • Pursuing Recoveries and Preventing Reoccurrence: Final Report of the Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner (CP 1462) — HM Treasury, December 2025.Official report (command paper); United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04.
  • Procurement Reform Starts with Requirement Formulation and the Supply Chain — Royal United Services Institute (Sir Julian Brazier, Ryan Shea), 2024-07-29.Expert commentary; United Kingdom (Ministry of Defence). Full text checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: Commentary with anecdotal examples; predates the 2025 Strategic Defence Review and the 2026 Defence Investment Plan. One author is a former defence minister.
  • The Equipment Plan 2023 to 2033 — National Audit Office, 2023-12.Public audit; United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: Predates the 2025 Strategic Defence Review and 2026 Defence Investment Plan; the MOD stopped publishing an equipment plan after this edition.
  • NISTA Major Projects Annual Report 2025–26 (ratings at 31 March 2026) — National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority, 2026-07-13.Official transparency data; United Kingdom. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: A delivery-confidence rating is a judgement about a project’s prospects, not a measure of military readiness or of value for money.
  • The effects of the Universal Metering Programme on water consumption, welfare and equity — University of Southampton, Department of Economics (Discussion Paper 1801) (Ornaghi C, Tonin M), 2018.Household panel of metered consumption before and after compulsory meter installation, with fixed effects and comparisons with households not yet switched.; Households in Southern Water’s Universal Metering Programme (about half a million meters installed); Southern Water area (Hampshire, Isle of Wight, Sussex, Kent). Full text checked, 2026-10-04. Limits: One company area and period; not peer-reviewed in this version; costs of meters and of the social tariff are programme-specific.
  • Dry weather and drought in England: 2 to 8 October 2026 — Environment Agency, 2026-10-09.Official operational monitoring; England. Relevant passages checked, 2026-10-11. Limits: 54% of reservoir capacity; a seasonal snapshot, not an annual trend or a causal measure of water investment effectiveness.

Counter-evidence and criticism

  • Collect the tax already due: Returns diminish as easier cases are worked; yield includes revenue “protected” that never arrives as cash; wrongly challenged taxpayers bear real costs. (National Audit Office)
  • Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery: More reporting can deter small suppliers and add cost; outcome contracts are hard to specify for complex services; social-value requirements complicate price comparison. (Institute for Government)
  • Protect water supplies and low-income households: The same study finds that for a large share of households the social cost of a meter outweighs its benefit, and that less affluent households lose on average; it suggests selective metering of larger households could be more efficient than universal metering. (University of Southampton, Department of Economics (Discussion Paper 1801))

“Full text checked” means we read the report itself; “relevant passages” means the sections behind each figure; “summary or abstract only” means we could not read the full study, so no number from it is published here without another source.

Other options compared — not on the shortlist (3)

Other options compared

Options from earlier work on this page that are not on the shortlist. They remain valid choices; their evidence is shown as before.

  • preventionStatus: operating

    Prevent and recover public-sector fraud and error

    Aims to:
    Less money lost from schemes and contracts, and more of what is lost recovered.
    How:
    Fraud checks built into schemes before money is paid; investigators and new legal powers pursue recovery after.
    Who decides:
    Public Sector Fraud Authority (Cabinet Office and HM Treasury), departments, HMRC, the Insolvency Service.
    Main constraint:
    Recovery is slow and partial once companies dissolve; prevention adds friction to schemes that must pay quickly.
    Evidence:
    Moderate evidence — evaluated, with limits on scope or transfer
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    The Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner found £1.8bn recovered of an estimated £10.9bn lost, with much of the rest beyond recovery — evidence of limited recoverability, not a comparison of the net returns from prevention and recovery. Disputed PPE contracts were cut from 55 (£1.26bn) to 8 (£325m of potential recoveries).
    Policy status
    The Public Authorities (Fraud, Error and Recovery) Act received Royal Assent on 2 December 2025. Section 105 extended the limitation period for specified Covid-fraud civil claims in England and Wales from six to twelve years; this is not proof of recoveries achieved.
    Resources
    Counter-fraud investigators, data-matching and legal capacity.
    Consent and decisions needed
    New data-sharing and recovery powers raise civil-liberties questions debated in Parliament.
    Time
    Prevention acts on new schemes immediately; recovery cases take years.
    Cost and yield
    No published figure for the net return on additional counter-fraud spending across government.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Tighter checks slow payments to genuine claimants in an emergency.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Cash recovered (received, not claimed) each year. Outcome: Lower estimated fraud and error rates in new schemes. It would not be working if: Announced recoveries are not matched by cash received.
  • structuralStatus: legislated

    Regulate private payments in regulated monopolies

    Aims to:
    Dividends and bonuses in water and energy networks linked to performance for customers.
    How:
    Regulators set allowed returns and can block payments; new law lets Ofwat ban bonuses where companies fail environmental standards.
    Who decides:
    Ofwat and Ofgem; Defra and DESNZ for legislation.
    Main constraint:
    Companies need investors to fund large investment programmes; tighter returns can raise their cost of capital.
    Evidence:
    Limited evidence — plausible mechanism, little direct evaluation
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    Water dividends declared fell from £1.0bn in 2023–24 to £0.645bn in 2024–25, but the fall cannot be attributed to any one rule. Whether payment restrictions improve services has not been evaluated.
    Policy status
    Water (Special Measures) Act 2025.
    Resources
    Regulator staff and enforcement capacity.
    Consent and decisions needed
    Price reviews and legislation; customers pay through bills either way.
    Time
    Takes effect at each price review (five-year periods).
    Cost and yield
    Not a revenue measure; changes who receives money rather than raising it for government.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Lower payouts to shareholders may mean higher borrowing costs or less investment.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Dividends and bonuses paid relative to performance targets. Outcome: Fewer pollution incidents and leaks; stable bills. It would not be working if: Payments fall but performance does not improve.
  • structuralStatus: operating

    Reallocate spending through the Spending Review

    Aims to:
    Money moved from lower- to higher-value uses within existing totals.
    How:
    The Treasury and departments compare the value of programmes and move budgets at a spending review.
    Who decides:
    HM Treasury, departments, Parliament (Estimates).
    Main constraint:
    Most spending is demand-led or contractual; little can move in a single year.
    Evidence:
    Limited evidence — plausible mechanism, little direct evaluation
    See the trade-offs and evidence
    What the evidence shows
    Spending reviews routinely reallocate money; systematic evidence on whether reallocations improved outcomes is sparse because most programmes are not evaluated against a counterfactual.
    Resources
    Evaluation capacity across departments.
    Consent and decisions needed
    Ministerial agreement and parliamentary votes; every reallocation has losers.
    Time
    At each spending review (every two to three years).
    Cost and yield
    None directly; the cost is what is given up.
    Trade-offs and who pays
    Every line moved takes money from a service someone relies on.
    How we would know it worked
    Leading indicator: Share of spending covered by robust evaluation. Outcome: Outcome measures improving in programmes that gained money. It would not be working if: Money moves but outcome measures do not.
The options side by side
OptionResourcesTimeEvidenceOutcome to watch
Prevent and recover public-sector fraud and errorCounter-fraud investigators, data-matching and legal capacity.Prevention acts on new schemes immediately; recovery cases take years.moderateLower estimated fraud and error rates in new schemes.
Regulate private payments in regulated monopoliesRegulator staff and enforcement capacity.Takes effect at each price review (five-year periods).limitedFewer pollution incidents and leaks; stable bills.
Reallocate spending through the Spending ReviewEvaluation capacity across departments.At each spending review (every two to three years).limitedOutcome measures improving in programmes that gained money.

Plan reviewed 2026-10-11. How we judge evidence.