Skilled people, investment, delivery: the three shortages holding Britain back.

These issues have no explicit link to a canonical action. A topic may have options while a specific issue remains unaddressed. This records assessment coverage, not the absence of possible solutions.

• Housing: Land capacity is not completed housing. The NAO found gaps in tracking homes built through some land-unlocking funds and called for long-term monitoring across programmes. Funding allocations and an unlocked site cannot establish how many suitable homes people can occupy.
• Housing: Supported housing is more than a bed. Residents may need help to live independently; weak oversight can leave them paying for support they do not receive. The June 2026 government response sets out licensing and support standards. These are implementation proposals, not evidence that poor provision has already been eliminated. Councils need inspection capacity and safe alternatives when provision closes.
• Housing: The FCA found misleading promotions and unsuitable advice in later-life mortgage sales, including inadequate consideration of alternatives and incentives that could favour sales. Its intervention led reviewed firms to change their processes. Rolling up interest can substantially increase lifetime-mortgage debt; suitability and clear total-cost explanations remain important.
• Housing: Shared ownership combines a purchased share with rent on the remainder. The NAO identifies affordability and information challenges; access should be assessed using the total ongoing cost, not just the initial deposit.
• Housing: Mean private rent was 36.3% of median gross renter-household income, and 41.6% in London. This is a ratio of averages, not every household’s rent burden; the England share has not risen steadily.
• Housing: Social-rent additions fell from 42,465 in 1996–97 to 12,267 in 2024–25. This is gross supply, including acquisitions, not net of sales and demolitions; Affordable Rent is a separate category.
• Housing: Of 4,724 monitored residential buildings at least 11 metres high with unsafe cladding, 2,153 had not started remediation. This monitored portfolio is not a count of every unsafe home; coverage changes over time.
• Housing: 4 million dwellings (15%) did not meet the Decent Homes Standard; 1.4 million (5%) had damp. Existing-home condition needs attention alongside supply and affordability. The categories overlap.
• Housing: Lower deposits and easier lending can widen access but leave borrowers with less equity and more exposure to income, rate and house-price shocks. Your First Home was announced in September 2026; its final terms, public cost and additional supply effects are not yet established. Responsible-lending safeguards remain essential.
• NHS: Mental-health access needs its own recovery test. CQC reports pressure on community and crisis services and a workforce that has not kept pace with demand. Hospital elective waiting-time improvements cannot establish that mental-health access or quality has improved.
• NHS: NHS trusts estimated £15.9bn to eradicate maintenance backlog in 2024/25. This is a risk-based estimate of work needed to restore the estate, excluding planned maintenance—not a funded programme, annual bill or estimate of the benefit from each repair.
• NHS: Community-service waits need their own recovery test. NHS England sets separate ambitions for these services; the hospital RTT measure cannot show whether people get timely rehabilitation, therapies or other community care. The guidance identifies persistent waits and calls for better demand, capacity and pathway management; it is not an evaluation of the proposed remedies.
• NHS: Dental access needs a separate recovery test: the NAO found the 2024 dental plan was not on course to deliver its additional treatment ambition and called for proper evaluation. Elective hospital waiting lists do not measure access to an NHS dentist; this is a dated audit, not a current count of unmet need.
• NHS: The NAO found the reset hospital programme had a more stable long-term basis, but construction schedules remained challenging. Slippage could push work and budget pressure into later funding periods. A programme announcement is not evidence that replacement hospitals are operational.
• Education: School transport is an access and delivery constraint, especially for children with SEND. The NAO found rising costs and risks from reductions in discretionary services, but insufficient data to measure the effect on attendance.
• Education: 18.1% of pupils were persistently absent, against 10.9% in 2018/19.
• SEND: 718,838 children and young people held a plan in January 2026, 2.99 times the 240,183 in January 2015; in schools the share of pupils rose from 2.8% to 6.0%. Part of the rise reflects a wider legal category (plans run to age 25) and identification, not only need.
• SEND: Mainstream schools carry the growth but support staffing has not kept pace: pupils with a plan rose 2.3 times to 538,547, while teaching assistant full-time equivalents rose about 11% to 295,183 and teachers about 2%. The two series count different things, so this is a pressure indicator, not a ratio of staff to plans. We found no national measure of one-to-one support or of the workload of special needs coordinators.
• SEND: Councils held a cumulative special-needs deficit of £6.7bn at 31 March 2026, up from £2.3bn two years earlier. It is a reported balance held under a statutory override that runs to 31 March 2028.
• SEND: Ofsted and CQC found inconsistent experiences and outcomes in 47 of 84 full area inspections and widespread or systemic failings in 21. These inspected areas are not a representative national sample. Five subsequent monitoring inspections found effective action on all priority actions; this does not mean all 21 areas have resolved their failings.
• SEND: School transport is an access and delivery constraint, especially for children with SEND. The NAO found rising costs and risks from reductions in discretionary services, but insufficient data to measure the effect on attendance.
• Energy and bills: Random audits of previously unaudited ECO4/GBIS installations estimated major or Category 1 non-compliance in 98% of external and 29% of internal wall insulation. The NAO identified oversight failures. Extending ECO4 gives time for repair; it does not establish that homes have been put right.
• Pensions: The NAO identified digital-capability and governance weaknesses behind dashboard delays. The 31 October 2026 scheme connection deadline is not public launch: MoneyHelper public availability is expected in 2027/28. Benefits depend on usable, accurate information reaching savers, not connection alone.
• Pensions: Saving a pension pot does not ensure a sustainable retirement income. Guided Retirement addresses difficult withdrawal choices; delivery still requires regulations, scheme governance and clear consent. Its eventual effects have not yet been established.
• Pensions: Pension consolidation and domestic investment must protect savers’ risk-adjusted returns. The 2025 Investment Review sets out policy aims; it does not establish that any particular UK allocation will outperform a diversified alternative.
• Pensions: On current policy the OBR projects State Pension spending rising from about 5% of GDP to about 9% by 2075–76 — about 7% with earnings uprating instead of the triple lock.
• Political funding: In the Electoral Commission’s newly weighted 2026 survey tables, 13.85% agreed that election funding and spending are open and transparent, while 49.08% disagreed. This measures public confidence, not proven misconduct, and the weighting change prevents a simple comparison with older estimates.
• Economy and cost of living: Output per hour worked grew about 2.2% a year from 1990 to 2007 but about 0.4% a year from 2007 to 2025. In 2025 it was 6.8% above 2007 and 0.7% below its 2023 level.
• Economy and cost of living: Among the G7, UK output per hour grew second slowest from 2007 to 2021, and its growth rate fell further than any other, from 2.0% a year in 1997–2007 to 0.3% a year. In 2021 UK output per hour was fourth of the six members with data, with output per hour 18% higher in France and 25% higher in the United States.
• Economy and cost of living: Regulatory reforms need evidence of results: the NAO found regulators taking action, but could not establish a material growth effect because government lacked the data. Growth objectives also require explicit trade-offs with protections for people and the environment.
• Economy and cost of living: UK exports depend on two markets whose trade rules the UK does not set: the United States took 21.8% of UK exports in 2025 and the EU 41.3%, so a tariff or regulatory change in either reaches a large share of UK sales abroad.
• Crime: About eight in ten adults say crime nationally has gone up, up from about six in ten ten years earlier, while Crime Survey crime excluding fraud fell about a third. A gap between belief and measurement can pull policy towards perceived rather than measured risks; worry about fraud and antisocial behaviour remains real and is measured separately.
• Crime: More officers do not automatically create a more effective response. The NAO found earlier productivity initiatives had not produced sustained change across forces, with inconsistent standards, patchy technology adoption and limited evidence of what works.
• Crime: 40.9% of adults experienced or witnessed local antisocial behaviour. This includes witnesses, not just direct victims. An April 2025 questionnaire-context change inflated part of the increase, so the full rise cannot be interpreted as behavioural change.
• Crime: The NAO’s July 2026 audit found gaps in monitoring, information and responses to breaches. Better supplier performance alone does not establish that the public is protected. Expansion needs reliable records, timely fitting and a staffed response to breaches. Tag counts are an input; monitoring coverage, response times and subsequent harm are the tests. The audit does not estimate the crime prevented by an additional tag.
• Crime: The NAO reported that about half of people in prison had an identified drug problem in April 2025. Its February 2026 audit found that prison operations and health services were not consistently working together. Security, treatment and recovery need to work together. The audit could not establish an overall value-for-money estimate; the prevalence figure is not an estimate of treatment effectiveness. Track access to treatment, continuity after release and harms alongside capacity.
• Crime: Domestic abuse and sexual violence need their own outcome tracking: they are outside the headline survey crime total. The NAO’s January 2025 audit found that the earlier cross-government strategies had not improved victim outcomes.
• Crime: Only 8.5% of police-recorded crimes led to a charge or summons in 2025–26, against 15.5% in 2014–15.
• Crime: Cases wait longer to be heard: 80,829 criminal cases were open in the Crown Court at the end of June 2026, the most on record, against 38,341 in December 2019.
• Crime: Prisons are close to full: 86,779 people were in prison on 5 October 2026 against a useable capacity of 89,012 places, leaving 2,233 free — 97.5% full.
• Jobs and pay: About 2.7 million people of working age are economically inactive because of long-term sickness, 658,000 more than at the end of 2019, while the overall inactivity rate has barely moved. Labour Force Survey estimates carry sampling uncertainty and are revised.
• Jobs and pay: Work-coach capacity affects the support people receive. The NAO found that 57% of jobcentres had reduced support when caseloads were too high. It called for better measures of sustained work and job quality; moving into earnings for one month does not establish a lasting job.
• Immigration: The Home Office spent about £4.2 billion on asylum support, resettlement and accommodation in 2025-26, a short-term cost paid while claims are decided. Small-boat arrivals were about 5% of the number arriving in 2025 but account for much of public attention to this cost.
• Immigration: NAO found no firm shared outcomes across the asylum system and insufficient interoperable data. Faster processing can shift backlogs elsewhere or reduce decision quality; progress must cover the whole case, including appeals and accommodation.
• Immigration: Worker protection matters alongside migration totals. The 2023 social-care immigration inspection identified weaknesses in sponsor licensing and compliance capacity, alongside exploitation and abuse. It is evidence of a delivery risk, not a current prevalence estimate.
• Inequality: The NAO credited improved wealthy-taxpayer compliance yield but found substantial uncertainty in the tax gap, especially offshore. HMRC later moved publication of its compliance plan from spring to the end of 2026; a plan or extra staffing is not evidence of recovered revenue.
• Inequality: Where people live matters, and the gap at the bottom has widened: output per hour in Wales was 13% below the UK average in 1998 and 15% below in 2023, and in the North East 12% and 15% below, while London was 33% above in 1998 and 29% above in 2023.
• Inequality: Wealth-policy decisions rely on a survey whose accreditation was suspended after quality concerns. Lower response and a changed pension valuation weaken comparisons; revised guidance and planned improvements do not themselves restore accreditation or validate a revenue estimate.
• Inequality: Gains in health and opportunity accrue slowly and averages can hide groups that lose out, so a programme can look successful while the gaps it targets persist.
• Inflation: The NAO finds that utility regulators have improved consumer protections, but debt, low social-tariff take-up and communication barriers persist for vulnerable consumers. Without clearer outcome measures, regulatory activity can be mistaken for improved affordability or service.
• Benefits: PAC reported that incorrect earnings-averaging guidance had led to an estimated 26,000 carers being wrongly recorded as overpaid. DWP began reassessing affected cases in April 2026; that start does not establish completed redress.
• Benefits: NAO found progress in reducing overpayments but called for an implementation plan that prevents errors before debt builds up and monitors adverse effects on claimants. Savings from checks alone do not demonstrate an accurate or fair service.
• Hampshire: CQC rated Southampton’s adult social care Requires improvement. Delayed assessments and reviews, incomplete information and weak assurance sat alongside some good person-centred practice. The finding belongs to Southampton, not all 13 council areas.
• Hampshire: Small populations and survey estimates make local change hard to measure: some area rankings rest on overlapping confidence intervals, so a pilot can look successful or failed by chance.
• Public finances: The NAO disclaimed its opinion on the Whole of Government Accounts for a third successive year because assurance over English council data remained inadequate. This limits scrutiny of the consolidated accounts; it is not proof that all spending was wasted or that ONS borrowing statistics are invalid.
• Public finances: Pressure has reached councils’ day-to-day budgets: 36 English councils were given in-principle exceptional financial support for 2026–27 — permission to borrow or sell assets to balance their budgets, not new grant.
• Public finances: More went on debt interest (£108.9bn) than on net investment in public assets such as roads, schools and hospitals (£86.9bn) in 2025–26. Interest is central government’s, net of the Bank of England’s asset purchase scheme; investment is the whole public sector’s, after wear and tear.
• Public finances: Net debt was 93.3% of GDP at the end of 2025–26, up 57.8 percentage points since 2007–08 (35.5%) and 8.8 percentage points since 2019–20 (84.5%). A larger debt means any rise in interest rates or inflation costs more.
• Public finances: Most of the OBR’s unchanged-policy scenarios imply mounting long-term fiscal pressure. The paths depend on growth, ageing, health costs and interest rates; they are conditional projections, not a prediction of bankruptcy on a fixed date.
• Public finances: Interest costs can jump without any policy change: on OBR sensitivities, 1 point higher RPI inflation adds about £7.0bn in a year and 1 point higher Bank Rate about £7.4bn.
• Public finances: After Budget 2026 the OBR forecasts a £14.5bn margin against the current-budget rule in 2029–30, down from £21.7bn in November 2025 and below the £27.2bn average of earlier forecasts; it puts the chance of meeting the rule at 56%.
• Public finances: The OBR’s October 2026 forecast puts debt interest at £123.9bn in 2026–27, up from £109.4bn in its March forecast, and £160.0bn by 2031–32. It is a forecast that moves with gilt yields, Bank Rate and inflation, not a measured outcome.
• Public finances: The OBR forecasts spending inside the welfare cap at £207.0bn in 2029–30, £2.8bn above the cap, against a £1.9bn margin in November 2025.
• Follow the money: Plans that bank recoveries can fund services with money that never arrives: of an estimated £10.9bn lost to fraud and error in Covid schemes, £1.8bn has been recovered.
• Revenue options: Revenue illustrations can look more certain than their evidence: OSR questioned the ready-reckoner’s official-statistics label and requested clearer modelling uncertainty. Wealth-survey accreditation is suspended from 2020–22 and pension valuation changed, limiting comparisons and precise tax-base estimates.
• Public procurement: Digital procurement faces concentrated supplier markets and difficult switching between cloud providers. The NAO found no shared strategic approach across government to these large suppliers in January 2025; buying a service does not remove the need for specialist commercial and digital capability.
• Defence: No official figure says how ready the armed forces are to fight. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review describes stockpiles as inadequate and recommends publishing availability data each year; regular forces are about 30% smaller than in 2006 while real spending is about 12% higher.
• Defence: PAC found insufficient detail to scrutinise the costs and scope of nuclear programmes beyond Dreadnought, despite nine programmes exceeding £10bn in whole-life costs. July accounts received a clean audit opinion; that does not establish programme value for money or readiness.
• Defence: 60% of trained regular personnel reported that the impact of service life on family/personal life increased their intention to leave. This is a weighted survey response, not observed exits or a causal estimate.
• Monarchy: Buckingham Palace reservicing encountered more asbestos than expected and additional essential remediation. Management still expects March 2027 completion, but says extra requirements would draw on the reserve if needed; a completion expectation is not a delivered outcome.
• Brexit: The OBR assumes UK trade intensity about 15% lower and productivity about 4% lower in the long run than if the UK had stayed in the EU. This is a modelled counterfactual, not an observation, and about 64% of British adults say leaving has gone badly: a perception, not a measure.
• Brexit: The NAO found that repeated border-control delays created uncertainty and avoidable costs, and called for clearer accountability and performance measures. This dated audit does not establish the current operating position.
• Growth and productivity: The NAO found stronger research-infrastructure investment cases and clearer strategic priorities, but UKRI still needs to balance new capabilities with maintenance and renewal. Some existing facilities cannot serve their intended purpose, and early project optimism remains a value-for-money risk.
• Growth and productivity: Regulators are responding to the growth duty, but the NAO found that HM Treasury and DBT lacked the data to establish a material growth impact. Clear risk trade-offs, outcome monitoring and an implementation plan are needed; reducing administrative burdens is not itself evidence of higher output.
• Innovation: The NAO found stronger investment cases and clearer priorities, but UKRI still needed to balance new research infrastructure with maintaining and renewing existing facilities, some no longer usable for their intended purpose. Early project optimism remained a value-for-money risk.
• AI capability and resilience: The NAO’s March 2024 audit identified value-for-money risks from unclear ownership and accountability for government AI adoption. This is a dated audit finding, not evidence that every gap remains unresolved in 2026; pilots and announcements alone do not establish service improvements.
• AI capability and resilience: Resilience also depends on legacy systems and cyber controls. The NAO found significant control gaps and unfunded remediation for many vulnerable systems. AI adoption figures do not measure whether critical services can withstand an attack.
• Media and information: Among 16 to 34s, about 58% rely mainly on social media for political news, the source the public rates least reliable. This is a survey of 1,529 people with a margin of about 3 points; the oldest and youngest age bands rest on small samples.
• Media and information: Ofcom opened an investigation into Meta’s risk assessments for Instants. Commenced safety duties are not proof of compliance or reduced harm; the investigation had not established a breach.
• Media and information: The 10 largest platforms are regulated for online safety; duties on news publisher content and content of democratic importance are not yet in force — Ofcom’s consultation on them closed on 2 October 2026 and its decisions are pending — and no UK rule covers the plurality of what feeds select.
• Votes and seats: The voting system also needs to be accessible. The Electoral Commission’s review of the May 2026 elections recommends improving the Voter Authority Certificate; votes-to-seats comparisons alone do not capture barriers to participation.
• Government delivery: The NAO found that shared-service delivery remained at risk from unclear central ownership, weak technical leadership and incompatible systems. This is a specific programme risk assessed before the current government took office.
• Health: The NAO found weak commissioning and targeting of NHS Health Checks. Fewer than half the annual eligible population attended in 2023/24, and follow-up data were insufficient for routine assessment of health outcomes. These are audit-period findings, not current attendance or proof that every check prevents illness.
• Health: Healthy life expectancy rests on a shrinking survey and an interim ONS method, so a real change of a few months may not be detectable for years.
• Social care: Councils overspent their adult social care budgets by about £715 million in 2025-26 and more than 400,000 people were waiting for an assessment, care, a direct payment or a review. This is a sector survey of directors, not an official statistic, and the page does not state a response rate.
• Social care: CQC identifies shortages in homecare and reablement, alongside providers returning council contracts because of costs. Its March 2025 breakdown attributes 23% of discharge delays among acute-hospital patients staying at least 14 days to social-care capacity or transfer-plan delays. This is a defined subgroup, not 23% of all occupied beds.
• Personal debt: In May 2024, 8% of UK adults reported falling behind on or missing bills or credit payments in at least three of the previous six months. This survey finding measures repeated difficulty, not recorded loan defaults.
• Personal debt: The same survey classed 24% of UK adults as having low financial resilience in May 2024: repeated payment difficulty, a heavy burden from bills or credit, or very limited savings. This overlaps with people missing payments; the percentages cannot be added.
• Personal debt: If income falls or essential costs rise, repayments that were manageable can become unaffordable. A temporary payment arrangement may not solve a lasting gap between income and bills.
• Personal debt: Misleading debt adverts can steer people towards unsuitable arrangements or unexpected fees. A promise to write off debt is not evidence that a solution suits the person.
• Cost of living: Renting the average private home takes 50% of a median full-time earner’s take-home pay, against 32% 30 years ago. The two years come from different rent sources, so the comparison is approximate.
• Cost of living: Home ownership among households headed by 25 to 34 year olds fell from 58.6% in 2003-04 to 47.7% in 2024-25. Young adults still living with parents are not counted, so the fall in young people with a home of their own may be larger.
• Cost of living: If house prices and rents keep rising faster than take-home pay, the cost falls on people who have not yet bought, mostly younger adults and renters, while outright owners are largely shielded. The gap between those with a home and those without can keep widening.

• Weakness: Land capacity is not completed housing. The NAO found gaps in tracking homes built through some land-unlocking funds and called for long-term monitoring across programmes. Funding allocations and an unlocked site cannot establish how many suitable homes people can occupy.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · February 2026 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusion

• Weakness: Supported housing is more than a bed. Residents may need help to live independently; weak oversight can leave them paying for support they do not receive. The June 2026 government response sets out licensing and support standards. These are implementation proposals, not evidence that poor provision has already been eliminated. Councils need inspection capacity and safe alternatives when provision closes.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England; Housing Benefit changes also concern Scotland and Wales · 2026-06-19 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG and DWP · Introduction; licensing; exemptions; next steps

• Weakness: The FCA found misleading promotions and unsuitable advice in later-life mortgage sales, including inadequate consideration of alternatives and incentives that could favour sales. Its intervention led reviewed firms to change their processes. Rolling up interest can substantially increase lifetime-mortgage debt; suitability and clear total-cost explanations remain important.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · FCA review, September 2023 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Financial Conduct Authority · Summary of findings: financial promotions and suitability of advice

• Weakness: Shared ownership combines a purchased share with rent on the remainder. The NAO identifies affordability and information challenges; access should be assessed using the total ongoing cost, not just the initial deposit.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · March 2026 review · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Scope: affordability and information challenges

• Weakness: Mean private rent was 36.3% of median gross renter-household income, and 41.6% in London. This is a ratio of averages, not every household’s rent burden; the England share has not risen steadily.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2023-24 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →ONS · Table 3

• Weakness: Social-rent additions fell from 42,465 in 1996–97 to 12,267 in 2024–25. This is gross supply, including acquisitions, not net of sales and demolitions; Affordable Rent is a separate category.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 1996–97 to 2024–25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Live Table 1000: Social Rent row, revised June 2026

• Weakness: Of 4,724 monitored residential buildings at least 11 metres high with unsafe cladding, 2,153 had not started remediation. This monitored portfolio is not a count of every unsafe home; coverage changes over time.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · August 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Overview: remediation progress

• Weakness: 4 million dwellings (15%) did not meet the Decent Homes Standard; 1.4 million (5%) had damp. Existing-home condition needs attention alongside supply and affordability. The categories overlap.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Key findings: non-decent dwellings and damp

• Weakness: A typical home costs 7.6 times full-time annual earnings, against 3.5 in 1997 (the early earnings basis differs in 1997–98).

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in

  England · 2025 (1997 reference) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table 1c

• Weakness: 135,580 households, including 177,530 children, were in temporary accommodation.

  Linked proposals: Give families in temporary accommodation a settled home

  England · March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Table TA1

• Weakness: England added 208,600 homes, against about 300,000 a year implied by the government’s 1.5 million ambition.

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in

  England · 2024–25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Live Table 120Centre for Cities · PDF pp.2–3

• Weakness: Prevention works for just over half of households: of 35,130 prevention duties that ended in January–March 2026, 54.7% ended with a home secured for six months or more and 25% became homeless. The end of a private tenancy was the most common reason among the 39,200 households owed a duty (36.0%).

  Linked proposals: Prevent avoidable loss of rented homes

  England · January to March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Main findings; sections 4 and 5

• Risk: Lower deposits and easier lending can widen access but leave borrowers with less equity and more exposure to income, rate and house-price shocks. Your First Home was announced in September 2026; its final terms, public cost and additional supply effects are not yet established. Responsible-lending safeguards remain essential.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom; Your First Home is England only · 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Bank of England · Household debt and mortgage lending safeguardsMHCLG · Announcement and Budget details pending

• Risk: Build-cost inflation, shortages of materials and labour, stretched planning teams and delays with utilities can mean fewer completions than planned — as the NAO found for the last programme.

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in; Sequence reforms that depend on the same people and infrastructure

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Summary, paragraphs 14–15

• Risk: About 6.3 million properties in England are in areas at risk of flooding from rivers, the sea or surface water; with climate change the Environment Agency projects around 8 million — 1 in 4 properties — by mid-century.

  Linked proposals: Protect flood-defence maintenance and appraise schemes by risk

  England · 2024 assessment; projection to mid-century · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Environment Agency · Executive summary, printed p.3Climate Change Committee · Printed p.12

• Weakness: Mental-health access needs its own recovery test. CQC reports pressure on community and crisis services and a workforce that has not kept pace with demand. Hospital elective waiting-time improvements cannot establish that mental-health access or quality has improved.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2024/25 regulator assessment · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Care Quality Commission · Mental health: access and workforce

• Weakness: NHS trusts estimated £15.9bn to eradicate maintenance backlog in 2024/25. This is a risk-based estimate of work needed to restore the estate, excluding planned maintenance—not a funded programme, annual bill or estimate of the benefit from each repair.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2024/25 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Key facts and data quality

• Weakness: Community-service waits need their own recovery test. NHS England sets separate ambitions for these services; the hospital RTT measure cannot show whether people get timely rehabilitation, therapies or other community care. The guidance identifies persistent waits and calls for better demand, capacity and pathway management; it is not an evaluation of the proposed remedies.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · NHS England guidance, April 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · National targets and actions to reduce waits

• Weakness: 65.2% of waiting pathways were within 18 weeks, against the 92% standard, last met in September 2015 on the figures including estimates for missing trusts (February 2016 on reported figures).

  Linked proposals: Protect elective surgery from emergency disruption; Cut treatment waits and improve patients’ health

  England · August 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Overview time series (incomplete pathways)

• Weakness: 7.37 million treatment pathways were waiting — about 6.24 million people — against 2.44 million pathways in March 2012.

  Linked proposals: Protect elective surgery from emergency disruption

  England · August 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Overview time series; estimated unique patients

• Weakness: 24.7% of patients were waiting six weeks or more for a diagnostic test in August 2026, against a 2026/27 target of at most 14%. In the separately dated July 2026 specialty breakdown, trauma and orthopaedics had the largest treatment list (840,967 pathways), with 60.9% within 18 weeks.

  Linked proposals: Cut treatment waits and improve patients’ health; Protect elective surgery from emergency disruption

  England · August 2026 diagnostics; July 2026 specialty breakdown · High confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · 6+ Week Waits %, Total (%)NHS England · p.6 (target)NHS England · Table 1, p.7 (by specialty)

• Weakness: Dental access needs a separate recovery test: the NAO found the 2024 dental plan was not on course to deliver its additional treatment ambition and called for proper evaluation. Elective hospital waiting lists do not measure access to an NHS dentist; this is a dated audit, not a current count of unmet need.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · November 2024 audit · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Risk: The NAO found the reset hospital programme had a more stable long-term basis, but construction schedules remained challenging. Slippage could push work and budget pressure into later funding periods. A programme announcement is not evidence that replacement hospitals are operational.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · January 2026 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusion

• Risk: Hubs can move work rather than add it: total elective surgery at trusts that opened hubs did not rise significantly, and staff may be drawn from emergency care.

  Linked proposals: Protect elective surgery from emergency disruption

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Health Foundation · Paper Results “New hubs”

• Risk: Capital for elective recovery in 2026/27 is aimed at finishing schemes already started, leaving little for new hubs without a further decision.

  Linked proposals: Protect elective surgery from emergency disruption

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · “Constitutional standards and hospital to community shift”

• Weakness: School transport is an access and delivery constraint, especially for children with SEND. The NAO found rising costs and risks from reductions in discretionary services, but insufficient data to measure the effect on attendance.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · NAO audit, October 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: 25.8% of disadvantaged pupils got grade 5+ in English and maths GCSE, against 53.1% of other pupils — a 27.3 points gap, against 25.2 points in 2018/19.

  Linked proposals: Target tutoring at the gaps pupils actually have; Close the early-language support gap; Build family hubs around what worked

  England · 2024/25 (2018/19 comparison) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · National characteristics data file (disadvantage status)

• Weakness: 18.1% of pupils were persistently absent, against 10.9% in 2018/19.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2024/25 (2018/19 comparison) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Absence for persistent and severe absentees (time series)

• Weakness: The funded childcare hours reach fewest of the children with the greatest need: 71.6% of eligible disadvantaged two-year-olds were registered in January 2026 (74.8% in 2024), against an estimated 8 in 10 eligible under-threes of working parents.

  Linked proposals: Make childcare places work for working parents

  England · January 2024 to January 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Data file “Headline figures”; section “Early learning for 2-year-olds”

• Weakness: Construction apprenticeships have the lowest achievement rate of any subject area — 58.3% in 2024/25 — and about 24,500 started that year, while the industry training board estimates 41,200 extra workers a year are needed from 2026 to 2030 (a need across all routes into the trade, not an apprenticeship target).

  Linked proposals: Skills in the building trades

  England (apprenticeships); United Kingdom (CITB) · 2024/25 (apprenticeships); 2026–2030 (CITB forecast) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · National achievement rates tables – impact of sector subject area; Recent trends – Tier 1 sector subject areasCITB · Headline findings (extra workers a year, 2026–2030)

• Risk: Staff shortages and absence can dilute tested programmes: the language programme needs about 20 weeks of teaching-assistant time, and pupils who are absent miss it.

  Linked proposals: Close the early-language support gap

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Education Endowment Foundation / RAND / University of Oxford · Report cost sectionDepartment for Education

• Weakness: 718,838 children and young people held a plan in January 2026, 2.99 times the 240,183 in January 2015; in schools the share of pupils rose from 2.8% to 6.0%. Part of the rise reflects a wider legal category (plans run to age 25) and identification, not only need.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · January 2015 to January 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Caseload data file

• Weakness: Mainstream schools carry the growth but support staffing has not kept pace: pupils with a plan rose 2.3 times to 538,547, while teaching assistant full-time equivalents rose about 11% to 295,183 and teachers about 2%. The two series count different things, so this is a pressure indicator, not a ratio of staff to plans. We found no national measure of one-to-one support or of the workload of special needs coordinators.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2015/16 to 2025/26 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Teaching assistants, FTE, 2015/16 to 2025/26Department for Education · Pupils with an EHC plan, school census

• Weakness: Councils held a cumulative special-needs deficit of £6.7bn at 31 March 2026, up from £2.3bn two years earlier. It is a reported balance held under a statutory override that runs to 31 March 2028.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 31 March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Revenue outturn time series, DSG adjustment account

• Weakness: Ofsted and CQC found inconsistent experiences and outcomes in 47 of 84 full area inspections and widespread or systemic failings in 21. These inspected areas are not a representative national sample. Five subsequent monitoring inspections found effective action on all priority actions; this does not mean all 21 areas have resolved their failings.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England, inspected local areas · January 2023–December 2025 inspections · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofsted and CQC · All_ASEND_to_Date_Summary

• Weakness: School transport is an access and delivery constraint, especially for children with SEND. The NAO found rising costs and risks from reductions in discretionary services, but insufficient data to measure the effect on attendance.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · NAO audit, October 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: 46.1% of new plans were issued within the 20-week legal limit, against 60.4% in 2019.

  Linked proposals: Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered

  England · 2025 (2019 comparison) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Timeliness of new EHC plans (20 weeks)legislation.gov.uk · Regulation 13

• Weakness: The national statistics count plans, requests, timeliness and reviews — not whether the support in a plan is delivered.

  Linked proposals: Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered

  England · Reporting year 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Education · Published data files

• Weakness: High-needs spending rose 66% in real terms to at least £12bn, while council deficits were forecast at around £8bn.

  Linked proposals: Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered

  England · 2016–2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Green Budget chapter key findings 2–3

• Risk: Restricting access to plans could cut recorded demand and deficits without improving children’s lives.

  Linked proposals: Fund SEND capacity and track provision actually delivered

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Comment text

• Weakness: Random audits of previously unaudited ECO4/GBIS installations estimated major or Category 1 non-compliance in 98% of external and 29% of internal wall insulation. The NAO identified oversight failures. Extending ECO4 gives time for repair; it does not establish that homes have been put right.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · 2025 statistical audits; ECO4 extension to December 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →DESNZ and Ofgem · Results and sampling approachNational Audit Office · Scope and findingsDESNZ · Government response, question 1

• Weakness: The price cap at typical use is £1,723 a year, against £979 before the 2021 gas surge.

  Linked proposals: Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  Great Britain · Oct–Dec 2026 (Apr–Sep 2021 comparison) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofgem · Annex 9, sheet 1c 'Consumption adjusted levels'

• Weakness: 9.4% of households in England — about 2.36 million — were projected to be in fuel poverty in 2025, based on 2024 final estimates; these are not final 2025 survey results.

  Linked proposals: Warm homes, inspected before payment

  England · 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Energy Security and Net Zero · Report p.1

• Weakness: Wholesale costs are about a third of a typical bill and networks almost another third, so cutting policy costs alone cannot bring bills back down.

  Linked proposals: Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  Great Britain · From April 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →UK Energy Research Centre · Section 3, Figure 1 and p.15

• Weakness: Connections reform has cut the queue but not yet the wait: before it, offer dates stretched into the 2040s; by June 2026, 713 of the 1,223 projects needed for 2030 (58%, 37GW) had offers, and Ofgem has twice extended the deadline for the rest, now 31 October 2026.

  Linked proposals: Connect the power Britain needs

  Great Britain · April 2025 to October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofgem · Summary decision document, p.4 and para 1.6National Energy System Operator · Opening paragraphsOfgem · pp.1–2

• Risk: Moving levies onto gas would raise bills for households that cannot switch — Nesta estimated about 19 million gas households paying about £20 a year more before compensation.

  Linked proposals: Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Nesta · Solution section, Figure 1

• Risk: Poor installation or ventilation can leave homes damp, and measured savings vary year to year.

  Linked proposals: Warm homes, inspected before payment

  Limited confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Energy Security and Net Zero · “Uncertainty in estimated savings”Cochrane / Hilary Thomson and colleagues

• Weakness: The NAO identified digital-capability and governance weaknesses behind dashboard delays. The 31 October 2026 scheme connection deadline is not public launch: MoneyHelper public availability is expected in 2027/28. Benefits depend on usable, accurate information reaching savers, not connection alone.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2024 audit; October 2026 programme status · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · SummaryPensions Dashboards Programme, Money and Pensions Service · Deadline and public launch

• Weakness: Saving a pension pot does not ensure a sustainable retirement income. Guided Retirement addresses difficult withdrawal choices; delivery still requires regulations, scheme governance and clear consent. Its eventual effects have not yet been established.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · July 2026 policy framework · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Background; requirements; longevity risk and consent

• Weakness: Only 62% of people entitled to Pension Credit claimed it in 2024–25; up to 900,000 families missed out on up to £2.4bn.

  Linked proposals: Claim what people are owed

  Great Britain · 2024–25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Sections 1 and 2

• Weakness: High participation is not the same as adequate saving: the IFS proposes an employer contribution for almost everyone and higher defaults above £9,000 because current minimums leave many under-saving.

  Linked proposals: Phase pension-saving reform with low-income protection

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies / abrdn Financial Fairness Trust · Recommendations 12–15

• Risk: Pension consolidation and domestic investment must protect savers’ risk-adjusted returns. The 2025 Investment Review sets out policy aims; it does not establish that any particular UK allocation will outperform a diversified alternative.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK workplace pensions; LGPS in England and Wales · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury, DWP and MHCLG · Summary and policy aims

• Risk: On current policy the OBR projects State Pension spending rising from about 5% of GDP to about 9% by 2075–76 — about 7% with earnings uprating instead of the triple lock.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · State pension long-run projection

• Risk: Contribution rises timed badly can squeeze take-home pay and push up opt-outs among those least able to save.

  Linked proposals: Phase pension-saving reform with low-income protection

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies / abrdn Financial Fairness Trust · Printed p.60

• Weakness: In the Electoral Commission’s newly weighted 2026 survey tables, 13.85% agreed that election funding and spending are open and transparent, while 49.08% disagreed. This measures public confidence, not proven misconduct, and the weighting change prevents a simple comparison with older estimates.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK adults aged 16+ · 2026 publication; October–December 2025 fieldwork · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Electoral Commission / YouGov · Percents Q17_A, new weights; base5945, effective base3003.71

• Weakness: Some parties depend on very few donors: among parties with at least £1m of private donations, the top ten donors gave between 25% (Liberal Democrats) and 83% (Reform UK) of the total.

  Linked proposals: Cost donation limits together with replacement party finance

  United Kingdom (published register coverage) · 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Electoral Commission · Site calculation from the donations export

• Weakness: The current maximum Electoral Commission civil fine is £20,000 per offence. Government intends a £500,000 limit through secondary legislation; that intention is not the present penalty.

  Linked proposals: Make the political-money trail timely and enforceable

  United Kingdom · Current guidance checked October 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Government policy summary: current maximum and intended secondary legislation

• Weakness: Disclosure shows who gave, not whether money bought influence; routes such as unincorporated associations and loans are harder to trace.

  Linked proposals: Make the political-money trail timely and enforceable

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →Electoral Commission · Donations and loans guidance

• Risk: Money can move to loans, connected companies or third-party campaigners; tighter rules can burden small volunteer-run parties and favour incumbents.

  Linked proposals: Make the political-money trail timely and enforceable; Cost donation limits together with replacement party finance

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Transparency International UK · Recommendations 2 and 13

• Weakness: Output per hour worked grew about 2.2% a year from 1990 to 2007 but about 0.4% a year from 2007 to 2025. In 2025 it was 6.8% above 2007 and 0.7% below its 2023 level.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 1990–2025 (annual averages of four quarters) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series LZVB (four quarters averaged for each complete year)

• Weakness: Among the G7, UK output per hour grew second slowest from 2007 to 2021, and its growth rate fell further than any other, from 2.0% a year in 1997–2007 to 0.3% a year. In 2021 UK output per hour was fourth of the six members with data, with output per hour 18% higher in France and 25% higher in the United States.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  G7 (Japan to 2020) · 1997–2021, published 11 January 2023 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table 7 (output per hour, chained volume index) and Table 1 (current prices, purchasing power parity)

• Weakness: Average real weekly pay in 2025 was 4.6% above 2007, 18 years on — after rising 18.3% from 2000 to 2007.

  Linked proposals: Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  Great Britain · 2000–2025 (annual averages) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series A3WX (annual averages, 2015 prices)

• Weakness: Real GDP per head grew about 0.5% a year from 2007 to 2025, against about 2.1% a year from 1990 to 2007.

  Linked proposals: Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  United Kingdom · 1990–2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series IHXW (four quarters summed for each complete year)

• Weakness: Real household disposable income per head in 2025 was 0.8% higher than in 2019.

  Linked proposals: Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  United Kingdom · 2019–2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series CRXW

• Risk: Regulatory reforms need evidence of results: the NAO found regulators taking action, but could not establish a material growth effect because government lacked the data. Growth objectives also require explicit trade-offs with protections for people and the environment.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · NAO review, 21 January 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Risk: Growth need not reach lower-income households: the Inquiry describes the UK’s mix of slow growth and high inequality as a “toxic combination” for low- and middle-income families.

  Linked proposals: Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare; Set an explicit test for whether benefits cover essentials

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Resolution Foundation / LSE Centre for Economic Performance · Final report PDF p.9, printed p.8 (executive summary); PDF p.29, printed p.28 (10 key facts)

• Risk: Energy and food price shocks pass quickly into household costs: CPI inflation peaked at 11.1% in October 2022, and prices do not fall back when the rate does.

  Linked proposals: Warm homes, inspected before payment

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series D7G7 (12-month rate)Bank of England · Section “Inflation was not caused by people spending too much”

• Risk: UK exports depend on two markets whose trade rules the UK does not set: the United States took 21.8% of UK exports in 2025 and the EU 41.3%, so a tariff or regulatory change in either reaches a large share of UK sales abroad.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Business and Trade · Section 2.1: UK exports to the EU and non-EU countries; Table 3a

• Weakness: About eight in ten adults say crime nationally has gone up, up from about six in ten ten years earlier, while Crime Survey crime excluding fraud fell about a third. A gap between belief and measurement can pull policy towards perceived rather than measured risks; worry about fraud and antisocial behaviour remains real and is measured separately.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · Year ending March 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table B1

• Weakness: More officers do not automatically create a more effective response. The NAO found earlier productivity initiatives had not produced sustained change across forces, with inconsistent standards, patchy technology adoption and limited evidence of what works.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · NAO audit, 3 November 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: 40.9% of adults experienced or witnessed local antisocial behaviour. This includes witnesses, not just direct victims. An April 2025 questionnaire-context change inflated part of the increase, so the full rise cannot be interpreted as behavioural change.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · YE Mar 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · ONS methodology investigation; appendix Table D1

• Weakness: The NAO’s July 2026 audit found gaps in monitoring, information and responses to breaches. Better supplier performance alone does not establish that the public is protected. Expansion needs reliable records, timely fitting and a staffed response to breaches. Tag counts are an input; monitoring coverage, response times and subsequent harm are the tests. The audit does not estimate the crime prevented by an additional tag.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · 2026-07-10 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: The NAO reported that about half of people in prison had an identified drug problem in April 2025. Its February 2026 audit found that prison operations and health services were not consistently working together. Security, treatment and recovery need to work together. The audit could not establish an overall value-for-money estimate; the prevalence figure is not an estimate of treatment effectiveness. Track access to treatment, continuity after release and harms alongside capacity.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · 2026-02-04 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Background and conclusions

• Weakness: Domestic abuse and sexual violence need their own outcome tracking: they are outside the headline survey crime total. The NAO’s January 2025 audit found that the earlier cross-government strategies had not improved victim outcomes.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · NAO audit, January 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Fraud is the most common crime the survey measures: 4.5 million incidents and 3.8 million adult victims in 2025–26, 47% of all survey incidents — up from 3.7 million incidents in 2019–20.

  Linked proposals: Stop scams across banks, platforms and telecoms

  England and Wales · 2019–20 and 2025–26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table A1a (fraud incidents and victims)

• Weakness: Only 8.5% of police-recorded crimes led to a charge or summons in 2025–26, against 15.5% in 2014–15.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · 2014–15 and 2025–26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Home Office · Table 1.3

• Weakness: Cases wait longer to be heard: 80,829 criminal cases were open in the Crown Court at the end of June 2026, the most on record, against 38,341 in December 2019.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · December 2019 and Jun 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Justice · Table C1 (Crown Court open caseload)

• Weakness: Prisons are close to full: 86,779 people were in prison on 5 October 2026 against a useable capacity of 89,012 places, leaving 2,233 free — 97.5% full.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England and Wales · Monday 5 October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Justice and HM Prison and Probation Service · Population and Capacity Briefing: Population; Useable Operational Capacity; Headroom (Total column)

• Risk: Scams adapt faster than controls: the 2023 Fraud Strategy aimed to cut fraud to 10% below 2019 levels by the end of that Parliament, yet survey fraud rose instead.

  Linked proposals: Stop scams across banks, platforms and telecoms

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Home Office · Executive summary paragraph 3; paragraph 154Office for National Statistics · Table A1a

• Risk: Poorly targeted enforcement can move crime or damage trust: the main hot spots review did not assess community effects, and English results swung from a 7% fall in 2021–22 to no significant effect in 2022–23.

  Linked proposals: Target repeat violence at places where harm clusters

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →College of Policing · Toolkit entry “Effect” and “Moderators” (archived copy)Home Office · Section 2.2

• Weakness: About 2.7 million people of working age are economically inactive because of long-term sickness, 658,000 more than at the end of 2019, while the overall inactivity rate has barely moved. Labour Force Survey estimates carry sampling uncertainty and are revised.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · June to August 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series LF69

• Weakness: Work-coach capacity affects the support people receive. The NAO found that 57% of jobcentres had reduced support when caseloads were too high. It called for better measures of sustained work and job quality; moving into earnings for one month does not establish a lasting job.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · NAO report, 31 March 2025; support reductions September 2023–November 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Demand, supply and performance; recommendations

• Weakness: 981,000 people aged 16–24 (13.0%) were not in education, employment or training; 588,000 of them were economically inactive rather than looking for work.

  Linked proposals: Build paid routes into work for excluded young people

  United Kingdom · Apr–Jun 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table 1 (seasonally adjusted)

• Weakness: 2.74 million people aged 16–64 were economically inactive because of long-term sickness, against 2.08 million at the end of 2019.

  Linked proposals: Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  United Kingdom · Oct–Dec 2019 and Jun–Aug 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series LF69

• Weakness: Access to Work decisions averaged 109 working days in November 2025 against a 25-day target (28 days in 2021–22), with 62,100 applications awaiting a decision at 31 March 2025; the employment rate of disabled people was 29.7 points below that of non-disabled people in mid-2025.

  Linked proposals: Timely workplace adjustments for disabled workers

  Great Britain (Access to Work); United Kingdom (employment gap) · March 2022 to November 2025 (processing); Q2 2025 (employment gap) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Key facts; paragraph 14Department for Work and Pensions · Table MSR001

• Weakness: About 445,000 jobs were paid below the legal minimum in 2025 (382,000 in 2024), while HMRC identified arrears for 25,200 workers in 2024/25. The underpayment figure is a survey estimate, not proven non-compliance.

  Linked proposals: Target minimum-wage enforcement where underpayment is highest, and test whether it works

  United Kingdom · 2024 to 2025 (underpayment); 2024/25 (enforcement) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Low Pay Commission · Table 9.1Department for Business and Trade · pp.4–6Office for National Statistics · Main points (“not a measure of non-compliance”)

• Risk: Gains are modest and fragile: Kickstart left an extra 11 in every 100 participants in unsubsidised work two years on, and weak employer demand, poor placements or diluted delivery could cut that further.

  Linked proposals: Build paid routes into work for excluded young people; Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Executive summary: key findingsYouth Futures Foundation · LimitationsCentre for Mental Health · PDF pp.22–23 (fidelity of IPS)

• Weakness: The Home Office spent about £4.2 billion on asylum support, resettlement and accommodation in 2025-26, a short-term cost paid while claims are decided. Small-boat arrivals were about 5% of the number arriving in 2025 but account for much of public attention to this cost.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2025-26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Home Office · Expenditure note

• Weakness: NAO found no firm shared outcomes across the asylum system and insufficient interoperable data. Faster processing can shift backlogs elsewhere or reduce decision quality; progress must cover the whole case, including appeals and accommodation.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · NAO, December 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Concluding remarks

• Weakness: Worker protection matters alongside migration totals. The 2023 social-care immigration inspection identified weaknesses in sponsor licensing and compliance capacity, alongside exploitation and abuse. It is evidence of a delivery risk, not a current prevalence estimate.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Inspection, August–November 2023 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Independent Chief Inspector of Borders and Immigration · Conclusions

• Weakness: Decision quality has fallen as output rose: only 52% of decisions met the Home Office’s own quality standards in 2023/24, down from 76% two years before.

  Linked proposals: Clear asylum cases without sacrificing decision quality

  United Kingdom · 2021/22 and 2023/24 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →University of Oxford Migration Observatory · “How productive are Home Office caseworkers?”, paragraph 3

• Weakness: The queue has moved to appeals: around 80,000 asylum appeals were pending at the First-tier Tribunal at the end of 2025, a record.

  Linked proposals: Clear asylum cases without sacrificing decision quality

  United Kingdom · End of 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →University of Oxford Migration Observatory · Key points; “How large is the UK’s backlog of asylum appeals?”

• Risk: Backlogs can move rather than clear: appeals have built up as initial decisions rose, and ending hotel use depends on accommodation contracts whose estimated 10-year cost rose from £4.5bn to £15.3bn.

  Linked proposals: Clear asylum cases without sacrificing decision quality

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →University of Oxford Migration Observatory · “How large is the UK’s backlog of asylum appeals?”National Audit Office · Paragraphs 4 and 8

• Weakness: The NAO credited improved wealthy-taxpayer compliance yield but found substantial uncertainty in the tax gap, especially offshore. HMRC later moved publication of its compliance plan from spring to the end of 2026; a plan or extra staffing is not evidence of recovered revenue.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · NAO May 2025; HMRC follow-up May 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · ConclusionsHM Revenue & Customs · Page 2

• Weakness: Healthy life expectancy in England’s most deprived areas is 19.4 years lower for men and 20.3 years lower for women than in the least deprived.

  Linked proposals: Build family hubs around what worked; Warm homes, inspected before payment

  England · 2022–2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Main points; estimates for 2022 to 2024

• Weakness: 27.4% of children (4.0 million) were in relative poverty after housing costs, and 13% were in deep material poverty, lacking at least four of thirteen essentials.

  Linked proposals: Set an explicit test for whether benefits cover essentials

  United Kingdom · 2024–25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Children: relative low income after housing costs; deep material poverty

• Weakness: Where people live matters, and the gap at the bottom has widened: output per hour in Wales was 13% below the UK average in 1998 and 15% below in 2023, and in the North East 12% and 15% below, while London was 33% above in 1998 and 29% above in 2023.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK nations and English regions (ITL1) · 1998 and 2023 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table 2 (output per hour, current prices, UK = 100)

• Risk: Wealth-policy decisions rely on a survey whose accreditation was suspended after quality concerns. Lower response and a changed pension valuation weaken comparisons; revised guidance and planned improvements do not themselves restore accreditation or validate a revenue estimate.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · OSR review June 2025; ONS method guide March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Statistics Regulation · Review findings and suspension scopeOffice for National Statistics · Limitations; planned improvements

• Risk: Gains in health and opportunity accrue slowly and averages can hide groups that lose out, so a programme can look successful while the gaps it targets persist.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →UCL Institute of Health Equity / Health Foundation · Executive summary PDF p.7

• Weakness: The NAO finds that utility regulators have improved consumer protections, but debt, low social-tariff take-up and communication barriers persist for vulnerable consumers. Without clearer outcome measures, regulatory activity can be mistaken for improved affordability or service.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Ofwat (England and Wales), Ofgem (Great Britain), Ofcom (United Kingdom) · NAO report, 10 June 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Summary and conclusions

• Weakness: CPI inflation was 3.5% in September 2026, above the 2% target — and the price level is 32.2% higher than in January 2021. Lower inflation slows further rises; it does not bring prices back down.

  Linked proposals: Set an explicit test for whether benefits cover essentials; Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  United Kingdom · January 2021 to September 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Series D7G7 (12-month rate) and D7BT (index)

• Weakness: At the October 2022 peak, households in the second-lowest income tenth faced 13.6% annual inflation on ONS’s Household Costs Indices, against 11.6% in the second-highest tenth.

  Linked proposals: Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating; Set an explicit test for whether benefits cover essentials

  United Kingdom · October 2022 (peak month) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Reference tables 1–4 (income deciles 2 and 9)

• Risk: Energy shocks can push inflation up again. In September 2026 the MPC judged inflation risks tilted upwards while finding little evidence yet of material second-round effects in wages and prices. It held Bank Rate at 3.75%; its outlook is conditional, not an observed future outcome.

  Linked proposals: Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  United Kingdom · MPC assessment, 17 September 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Bank of England · Monetary Policy Summary and paragraphs 9–13

• Weakness: PAC reported that incorrect earnings-averaging guidance had led to an estimated 26,000 carers being wrongly recorded as overpaid. DWP began reassessing affected cases in April 2026; that start does not establish completed redress.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · PAC February 2026; DWP April 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Committee of Public Accounts · Conclusion 7; paragraphs 27–30Department for Work and Pensions · 13 April 2026 update

• Weakness: NAO found progress in reducing overpayments but called for an implementation plan that prevents errors before debt builds up and monitors adverse effects on claimants. Savings from checks alone do not demonstrate an accurate or fair service.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · NAO, 22 October 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Only 62% of people entitled to Pension Credit claimed it; up to 900,000 entitled families did not, leaving up to £2.4bn unclaimed in 2024–25 (one year’s estimate).

  Linked proposals: Claim what people are owed

  Great Britain · 2024–25 (FYE 2025) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Sections 1 and 2

• Weakness: Payments are wrong in both directions: 3.2% of benefit spending (£9.9bn) was overpaid and 0.4% (£1.2bn) underpaid in 2025–26.

  Linked proposals: Claim what people are owed

  Great Britain · 2025–26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · Reference tables 2 and 7

• Risk: Hardship and error can rise when savings drive design: for most new claims from April 2026 the Universal Credit health element is about half the previous rate, and DWP’s impact assessment calls the behavioural effects the most uncertain part of its estimates.

  Linked proposals: Set an explicit test for whether benefits cover essentials; Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Work and Pensions · pp.4 and 12 (behavioural impacts); p.9, Table 9

• Weakness: CQC rated Southampton’s adult social care Requires improvement. Delayed assessments and reviews, incomplete information and weak assurance sat alongside some good person-centred practice. The finding belongs to Southampton, not all 13 council areas.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Southampton City Council only · CQC assessment, 17 June 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Care Quality Commission · Overall summary

• Weakness: Men’s life expectancy at birth was 83.7 years in Hart and 78.0 in Southampton — a 5.7-year gap inside one county.

  Linked proposals: Build a Hampshire plan around specific local needs and powers; Warm homes, inspected before payment; Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  Ceremonial Hampshire · 2022–2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Life expectancy at birth, by sex (local authority rows)

• Weakness: A typical home costs from 6.8 times full-time resident earnings in Gosport to 10.5 in Winchester, against 7.4 for England.

  Linked proposals: Build a Hampshire plan around specific local needs and powers; Give families in temporary accommodation a settled home

  Hampshire council areas · Year ending Mar 2026 house price / 2025 earnings · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Median price paid, all dwellings (site calculation with ASHE resident earnings)

• Risk: The structure may change: the March 2026 decision to reorganise Hampshire’s councils was withdrawn on 7 September 2026 and is under government review, with May 2027 elections on existing boundaries. Proposed boundaries are not settled.

  Linked proposals: Build a Hampshire plan around specific local needs and powers

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →MHCLG · Letter: withdrawn decisions; May 2027 elections

• Risk: Small populations and survey estimates make local change hard to measure: some area rankings rest on overlapping confidence intervals, so a pilot can look successful or failed by chance.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Confidence intervals published for each area

• Risk: Water and the sea are local risks now: in late September 2026 Southern Water was at drought level 1 in its Hampshire and Isle of Wight supply zones with temporary use bans in force, and in Portsmouth 8,077 homes and 704 commercial properties in Southsea are at risk from coastal flooding, which a coastal scheme funded in 2020 is being built to reduce.

  Linked proposals: Protect flood-defence maintenance and appraise schemes by risk; Protect water supplies and low-income households

  Hampshire and the Isle of Wight; Portsmouth (Southsea) · September 2026 (drought); scheme funded 2020 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Environment Agency · Water company actions (Southern Water)Coastal Partners (Portsmouth, Havant, Gosport, Fareham councils) · Project page, opening section

• Weakness: The NAO disclaimed its opinion on the Whole of Government Accounts for a third successive year because assurance over English council data remained inadequate. This limits scrutiny of the consolidated accounts; it is not proof that all spending was wasted or that ONS borrowing statistics are invalid.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK consolidated accounts; English council data · 2024–25 accounts; June 2026 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Audit opinion and basis for disclaimer

• Weakness: Debt interest was £108.9bn in 2025–26, 8.8% of public-sector receipts, and the state borrowed £134.3bn; debt stood at 93.3% of GDP.

  Linked proposals: Show tax choices with their real trade-offs; Tie spending decisions to realistic outcomes and costs

  United Kingdom · 2025–26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Aggregates (£bn) and (per cent of GDP)

• Weakness: Those totals say how tight the budget is, not which spending is least valuable: the NAO finds spending decisions short-term and reactive, with evaluation too rarely used.

  Linked proposals: Tie spending decisions to realistic outcomes and costs

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Summary paragraph 11

• Weakness: Pressure has reached councils’ day-to-day budgets: 36 English councils were given in-principle exceptional financial support for 2026–27 — permission to borrow or sell assets to balance their budgets, not new grant.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2026–27 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Table “Exceptional Financial Support requests from local authorities: 2026-27” (36 rows)

• Weakness: More went on debt interest (£108.9bn) than on net investment in public assets such as roads, schools and hospitals (£86.9bn) in 2025–26. Interest is central government’s, net of the Bank of England’s asset purchase scheme; investment is the whole public sector’s, after wear and tear.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2025–26 (provisional) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Aggregates (£bn): debt interest net of APF; public sector net investment

• Weakness: Net debt was 93.3% of GDP at the end of 2025–26, up 57.8 percentage points since 2007–08 (35.5%) and 8.8 percentage points since 2019–20 (84.5%). A larger debt means any rise in interest rates or inflation costs more.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2007–08 to 2025–26 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Aggregates (per cent of GDP): public sector net debt, end of March

• Risk: Most of the OBR’s unchanged-policy scenarios imply mounting long-term fiscal pressure. The paths depend on growth, ageing, health costs and interest rates; they are conditional projections, not a prediction of bankruptcy on a fixed date.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · July 2026 long-term scenarios · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · July 2026 executive summary and scenario assumptions

• Risk: Interest costs can jump without any policy change: on OBR sensitivities, 1 point higher RPI inflation adds about £7.0bn in a year and 1 point higher Bank Rate about £7.4bn.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Sheet Debt_interest_RR

• Risk: On the OBR’s March 2026 forecast, debt interest rises to £137.1bn by 2030–31 — a projection that weaker growth or higher rates would make worse.

  Linked proposals: Show tax choices with their real trade-offs

  March 2026 forecast · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Aggregates (£bn), forecast years (March 2026 forecast)

• Risk: After Budget 2026 the OBR forecasts a £14.5bn margin against the current-budget rule in 2029–30, down from £21.7bn in November 2025 and below the £27.2bn average of earlier forecasts; it puts the chance of meeting the rule at 56%.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · October 2026 forecast for 2029–30 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Table 7.1; Chart 7.7

• Risk: The OBR’s October 2026 forecast puts debt interest at £123.9bn in 2026–27, up from £109.4bn in its March forecast, and £160.0bn by 2031–32. It is a forecast that moves with gilt yields, Bank Rate and inflation, not a measured outcome.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · October 2026 forecast · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Table 5.8; paragraph 5.29

• Risk: The OBR forecasts spending inside the welfare cap at £207.0bn in 2029–30, £2.8bn above the cap, against a £1.9bn margin in November 2025.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · October 2026 forecast for 2029–30 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Table 7.1 (welfare cap)

• 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.

  Linked proposals: Collect the tax already due

  United Kingdom · tax year 2024–25 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Revenue and Customs · Tables 1.2, 1.3 and 7.1 (latest year is a projection)

• Weakness: Estimated gaps, assessed yields and cash are easily confused: compliance yield includes revenue “protected”, and the £10bn-a-year compliance package expected by 2029–30 is already in the forecasts.

  Linked proposals: Collect the tax already due

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Paragraph 1.12HM Revenue and Customs · “£10 billion of additional tax revenue per year by 2029 to 2030”HM Treasury · “Closing the tax gap” (the first £6.5bn)

• Risk: Plans that bank recoveries can fund services with money that never arrives: of an estimated £10.9bn lost to fraud and error in Covid schemes, £1.8bn has been recovered.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury · Final report of the Covid Counter Fraud Commissioner

• Risk: Average returns do not establish what more staff would bring: HMRC could not tell the NAO the marginal return to further investment. The large-business directorate generated about £95 per £1 of its staff costs; the broader measure was about £58 per £1, including all HMRC staff and overhead costs and all compliance yield associated with large businesses.

  Linked proposals: Collect the tax already due

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Paragraph 3.6 and footnote 10

• Weakness: Estimates rest on different years, baselines and behaviour: HMRC’s lines are single small changes, the IFS tax options predate Budget 2025, and the IFS council-tax modelling uses 2019 values — so they cannot be added together.

  Linked proposals: Show tax choices with their real trade-offs

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Revenue and Customs · Ready-reckoner notesInstitute for Fiscal Studies · Key findingsInstitute for Fiscal Studies · Summary briefing

• Weakness: Council tax bands in England still rest on April 1991 values, and the top band pays three times the bottom band although those homes were worth at least eight times as much in 1991.

  Linked proposals: Reform property taxes without hiding the losers

  England · Valuation base April 1991 (still in use; IFS 2020 and June 2024) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Summary briefing, p.1 and key finding 1Institute for Fiscal Studies · Comment paragraphs 1–2

• Weakness: Reliefs narrow the capital taxes: business asset disposal relief cost about £1.0bn in 2023–24 and agricultural and business property relief about £1.9bn in 2022–23, while gains held at death are not taxed and HMRC does not estimate their cost. The OBR expects behaviour to remove about 60% of the static yield of the 2024 capital gains tax rate rises.

  Linked proposals: Close capital-tax reliefs rather than raise rates

  United Kingdom · 2022–23 to 2025–26 (relief costs); October 2024 (OBR costing) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Revenue and Customs · Table 2 (CGT-NS2; IHT-NS1; IHT-NS2); Table 4 (gains unrealised at death not estimated)Office for Budget Responsibility · Paragraph 3.17; Table 3.3

• Risk: Revenue illustrations can look more certain than their evidence: OSR questioned the ready-reckoner’s official-statistics label and requested clearer modelling uncertainty. Wealth-survey accreditation is suspended from 2020–22 and pension valuation changed, limiting comparisons and precise tax-base estimates.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Statistics Regulation · Our judgement and next stepsOffice for National Statistics · Notice and section 2

• Risk: Behaviour can wipe out simple yields: on HMRC’s figures, +10 points on the higher rate of capital gains tax loses about £2.06bn, while +1 point on inheritance tax raises about £0.24bn.

  Linked proposals: Close capital-tax reliefs rather than raise rates; Show tax choices with their real trade-offs

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Revenue and Customs · Ready-reckoner table, 2027–28

• Risk: Property-tax reform creates concentrated losers: in the IFS modelling about 17% of London’s poorest fifth would pay over £200 a year more, which makes transition relief and deferral necessary and costly.

  Linked proposals: Reform property taxes without hiding the losers

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · “How could losses for vulnerable groups be mitigated?”

• Weakness: Interview-based research finds procurements often start from over-specified solutions, commercial staff are involved late, and senior commercial and contract-management capability is thin.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

  UK central government · 2024–25 policy context (published September 2025) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Government · Report PDF p.4

• Weakness: 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.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery; Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  United Kingdom · Ratings at 31 March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority · Delivery confidence ratings

• Risk: Digital procurement faces concentrated supplier markets and difficult switching between cloud providers. The NAO found no shared strategic approach across government to these large suppliers in January 2025; buying a service does not remove the need for specialist commercial and digital capability.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Summary paragraphs 4 and 10

• Risk: Fragmented buying and limited cross-government working can erode value and leave lessons from one department unlearned in another.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Government · Report summary p.4

• Risk: Judging rules before they apply misleads: the insourcing Public Interest Test starts on 1 April 2027 and its first quarterly return is due by 30 July 2027, with no date set for central publication.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Cabinet Office · Commencement and reporting sections

• Weakness: No official figure says how ready the armed forces are to fight. The 2025 Strategic Defence Review describes stockpiles as inadequate and recommends publishing availability data each year; regular forces are about 30% smaller than in 2006 while real spending is about 12% higher.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2025 review; 2026 position · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Defence · Stockpiles and readiness findings

• Weakness: PAC found insufficient detail to scrutinise the costs and scope of nuclear programmes beyond Dreadnought, despite nine programmes exceeding £10bn in whole-life costs. July accounts received a clean audit opinion; that does not establish programme value for money or readiness.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · June 2026 scrutiny · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Public Accounts Committee · Conclusion 3; paragraphs 9–12National Audit Office · Clean audit opinion

• Weakness: 60% of trained regular personnel reported that the impact of service life on family/personal life increased their intention to leave. This is a weighted survey response, not observed exits or a causal estimate.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Defence · Annex B, Table B12.8 (A175)

• Weakness: Regular forces numbered 137,966 in April 2026, 28% fewer than in 2010; 122,556 were fully trained at 1 July 2026. A smaller headcount is not a proportionate loss of capability.

  Linked proposals: Fund military readiness before counting new announcements

  United Kingdom · 1 April 2010 and 1 April 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Defence · UK Regular Forces strength; full-time trained strength

• Weakness: 16 of 39 rated MOD major projects were Red, against 34 of 172 rated across government; 5 MOD ratings were withheld.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

  United Kingdom · Ratings at 31 March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Infrastructure and Service Transformation Authority · Delivery confidence ratings by department

• Weakness: The February 2024 Defence Committee assessment found warfighting readiness in doubt: every service had capability shortfalls and stockpile shortages and was losing personnel faster than it recruited. Readiness data once published are now withheld.

  Linked proposals: Fund military readiness before counting new announcements

  United Kingdom · January 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Defence Committee · Summary

• Risk: Cost growth and long lead times can outrun plans: the NAO found the 2023–2033 equipment plan £16.9bn over budget, with deficits growing in the nuclear deterrent and naval and air programmes.

  Linked proposals: Buy measurable results and manage contracts through delivery

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Report summary pageRoyal United Services Institute · Opening paragraphs

• Weakness: Royal security costs are not published: Treasury guidance says no breakdown is available because disclosure could compromise protection.

  Linked proposals: Publish a fuller, auditable monarchy cost statement

  United Kingdom · Reviewed 11 October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · Section 8.1, printed pp.78–79

• Weakness: Other costs sit in separate accounts: £5m for Royal Household pensions from the Consolidated Fund and £1.5m for Lord-Lieutenants from the Cabinet Office, plus event policing and council costs that are not reported together.

  Linked proposals: Publish a fuller, auditable monarchy cost statement

  United Kingdom · Pensions 2024–25; Lord-Lieutenants 2023–24 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · Section 8.1, printed p.78

• Risk: Buckingham Palace reservicing encountered more asbestos than expected and additional essential remediation. Management still expects March 2027 completion, but says extra requirements would draw on the reserve if needed; a completion expectation is not a delivered outcome.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 2025–26 accounts · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury / Royal Household · Printed p.15, property maintenance explanation

• Risk: Unverifiable totals distort the debate in both directions: outside estimates of security costs range from several million to a hundred million pounds a year, and the Commons Library calls tourism and trade benefits highly uncertain.

  Linked proposals: Publish a fuller, auditable monarchy cost statement

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · Sections 8.1 and 8.2

• Risk: A profit-linked formula can raise the Grant for reasons unrelated to need: it rose to £137.9m for 2026–27, ahead of the planned reset.

  Linked proposals: Test the royal grant against an explicit public purpose

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · Summary

• Weakness: The OBR assumes UK trade intensity about 15% lower and productivity about 4% lower in the long run than if the UK had stayed in the EU. This is a modelled counterfactual, not an observation, and about 64% of British adults say leaving has gone badly: a perception, not a measure.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Updated July 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Budget Responsibility · Long-run assumptions

• Weakness: The NAO found that repeated border-control delays created uncertainty and avoidable costs, and called for clearer accountability and performance measures. This dated audit does not establish the current operating position.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Audit published May 2024; evidence to April 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusion and scope

• Weakness: Goods exports to the EU were −14% in volume between 2019 and 2025, against −8% to the rest of the world; the EU series has a recording break in January 2021.

  Linked proposals: Cut EU trade friction with a scoped food-and-farm deal; Make the remaining border process usable for small exporters

  United Kingdom · 2019 to 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · CDIDs JIM8 and JIN3 (goods excluding precious metals)

• Weakness: The new rules cut the number of product-country varieties exported to the EU by about 30%, driven by the loss of low-value trade relationships — consistent with smaller exporters leaving smaller EU markets.

  Linked proposals: Make the remaining border process usable for small exporters; Cut EU trade friction with a scoped food-and-farm deal

  United Kingdom · 2021 (published April 2022) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →LSE Centre for Economic Performance · Introduction, PDF p.4

• Risk: The agreement is not yet concluded: the July 2026 summit was postponed after the change of government, exceptions such as gene editing were still being negotiated, and alignment obligations would limit future divergence.

  Linked proposals: Cut EU trade friction with a scoped food-and-farm deal

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Food Standards Agency · Paragraph 2.2UK in a Changing Europe · PDF pp.9–10

• Risk: Barriers are rising outside the EU too: after US tariffs from April 2025, UK goods exports to the United States fell 10.2% in 2025 (current prices), against 1.8% for all UK goods exports, and in April 2026 most UK goods still faced a 10% US tariff while the May 2025 deal was only partly implemented.

  Linked proposals: Cut EU trade friction with a scoped food-and-farm deal

  United Kingdom · 2024 to 2025; tariffs as at April 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · CDIDs J9C5 and BOKG (annual, current prices)House of Commons Library · Summary (archived copy, 22 May 2026)

• Weakness: The NAO found stronger research-infrastructure investment cases and clearer strategic priorities, but UKRI still needs to balance new capabilities with maintenance and renewal. Some existing facilities cannot serve their intended purpose, and early project optimism remains a value-for-money risk.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 13 March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Regulators are responding to the growth duty, but the NAO found that HM Treasury and DBT lacked the data to establish a material growth impact. Clear risk trade-offs, outcome monitoring and an implementation plan are needed; reducing administrative burdens is not itself evidence of higher output.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 21 January 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Total investment was 18.7% of GDP in 2024, the lowest in the G7 (the other six had a median of 21.8%); the UK was lowest in 23 of the 33 years since 1992.

  Linked proposals: Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  United Kingdom and G7 · 2024 (G7 comparison since 1992) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →World Bank · NE.GDI.FTOT.ZS

• Weakness: The government reports flat on-site labour productivity in construction and a significant construction workforce deficit.

  Linked proposals: Sequence reforms that depend on the same people and infrastructure

  United Kingdom · 2025 (citing 2024 analysis) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury and NISTA · Paragraph 1.28 (citing the National Infrastructure Commission, 2024)

• Weakness: Output per hour was below the UK average in 10 of 12 nations and regions in 2023: London produced about 29% more per hour than the UK average and Wales about 15% less.

  Linked proposals: Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  UK nations and English regions (ITL1) · 2023 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Table 2 (output per hour, current prices, UK = 100)

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

  Linked proposals: Transport access to jobs

  England · Year ending March 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Transport · Main points; tables BUS01 and BUS04Department for Transport · Decision

• Risk: Construction capacity, financing costs and stop-start decisions can block delivery; the NAO finds spending decisions have been short-term and reactive.

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in; Sequence reforms that depend on the same people and infrastructure; Turn investment promises into a deliverable pipeline

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury and NISTA · Paragraph 1.28National Audit Office · Summary

• Risk: 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.

  Linked proposals: Protect water supplies and low-income households

  England · Projection to 2055; drought status September 2026 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Environment Agency · Executive summaryEnvironment Agency · Summary; Water company actions

• Risk: Infrastructure and services are not being adapted to the climate already arriving: the Climate Change Committee judged the UK’s preparations inadequate and found no adaptation outcome, of the 46 it assessed, with evidence of good delivery.

  Linked proposals: Protect flood-defence maintenance and appraise schemes by risk

  United Kingdom · Assessment published April 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Climate Change Committee · Executive summary, printed pp.10 and 16

• Weakness: The NAO found stronger investment cases and clearer priorities, but UKRI still needed to balance new research infrastructure with maintaining and renewing existing facilities, some no longer usable for their intended purpose. Early project optimism remained a value-for-money risk.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · NAO audit, March 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Spending and spin-out counts do not show economic or social returns: the flagship technology-adoption scheme found no statistically significant productivity effect, and the spin-out review offers recommendations rather than measured outcomes.

  Linked proposals: Make university spin-out deals clearer and quicker; Existing-firm management and technology adoption; Use public buying to test useful innovations

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Business and Trade · Impact findingsIrene Tracey / Andrew Williamson, published by DSIT and HM Treasury · Review PDF pp.6–7

• Weakness: Smaller businesses raised £12.3bn in equity finance in 2025, 4% less than the year before, across 17% fewer deals.

  Linked proposals: Use public buying to test useful innovations

  United Kingdom · 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →British Business Bank · Headline findings

• Weakness: Management practice scores rose only modestly (0.50 in 2016 to 0.55 in 2023), and the national management programme, Help to Grow: Management, found no statistically significant effect on firms’ productivity after 9,847 leaders took part.

  Linked proposals: Existing-firm management and technology adoption

  Great Britain (firms with 10+ employees); United Kingdom (programme) · 2016 to 2023 (management scores); to FY2022/23 (Help to Grow evaluation) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Main pointsDepartment for Business and Trade (Ipsos and IES); now BIST · Executive summary pp.3 and 5

• Risk: Finance gaps at the scale-up stage, weak demand and pilots without buyers can stop promising research reaching use.

  Linked proposals: Use public buying to test useful innovations

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →British Business Bank · Headline findingsIrene Tracey / Andrew Williamson, published by DSIT and HM Treasury · Recommendations

• Weakness: The NAO’s March 2024 audit identified value-for-money risks from unclear ownership and accountability for government AI adoption. This is a dated audit finding, not evidence that every gap remains unresolved in 2026; pilots and announcements alone do not establish service improvements.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK central government · March 2024 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions and recommendations

• Weakness: Resilience also depends on legacy systems and cyber controls. The NAO found significant control gaps and unfunded remediation for many vulnerable systems. AI adoption figures do not measure whether critical services can withstand an attack.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK central government · NAO audit, January 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Cloud infrastructure is concentrated: Microsoft and AWS each held 30–40% of UK cloud infrastructure and platform services in 2024 (CMA estimates), and fewer than 1% of customers switch provider in a year.

  Linked proposals: Make cloud exit and continuity work in practice

  United Kingdom · 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Competition and Markets Authority · Summary of final decision, paragraphs 5–8

• Weakness: Adoption rates are not outcomes: the main evaluated adoption scheme found no statistically significant effect on productivity.

  Linked proposals: Measure useful AI adoption before scaling it

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Business and Trade · Impact findings

• Risk: Lock-in may persist: the CMA chose provider commitments on egress fees over formal cloud investigations, with a review after six months, so whether switching rises is untested.

  Linked proposals: Make cloud exit and continuity work in practice

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Competition and Markets Authority · Press releaseCompetition and Markets Authority · Summary paragraphs 5–8

• Risk: Hidden review work, errors and automation bias can cancel out time saved if pilots count throughput but not quality.

  Linked proposals: Measure useful AI adoption before scaling it

  Limited confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Treasury / Evaluation Task Force · Chapter 1

• Weakness: Among 16 to 34s, about 58% rely mainly on social media for political news, the source the public rates least reliable. This is a survey of 1,529 people with a margin of about 3 points; the oldest and youngest age bands rest on small samples.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Great Britain · Autumn 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NatCen Social Research · Q20 and Q21

• Weakness: Ofcom opened an investigation into Meta’s risk assessments for Instants. Commenced safety duties are not proof of compliance or reduced harm; the investigation had not established a breach.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · 6 October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofcom · Investigation opening text

• Weakness: Reach, trust and influence are different things: Meta reaches 51% of adults with news, more than newspapers’ 44%, while only 30% of UK respondents trust most news most of the time.

  Linked proposals: Teach people to recognise manipulation, then test retention

  United Kingdom · Ofcom fieldwork November 2025 to March 2026; Reuters Institute 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofcom · Figures 1 and 9; adult data Table 359Reuters Institute, University of Oxford · United Kingdom country page (trust)

• Weakness: The 10 largest platforms are regulated for online safety; duties on news publisher content and content of democratic importance are not yet in force — Ofcom’s consultation on them closed on 2 October 2026 and its decisions are pending — and no UK rule covers the plurality of what feeds select.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · As at 4 October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ofcom · Register of categorised services; consultation statusOfcom · Consultation page: published 10 July 2026, closed 2 October 2026 (statement pending)

• Risk: Literacy effects fade without reinforcement, and warnings can breed indiscriminate distrust of accurate news.

  Linked proposals: Teach people to recognise manipulation, then test retention

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Nature Communications 16 · Abstract (decay; boosters)Journal of Experimental Psychology: General

• Risk: Public or platform funding for journalism can create real or perceived influence; in Ireland trust in news fell in the same year new support was announced, so support alone cannot be assumed to raise trust.

  Linked proposals: Test independent support for public-interest local reporting

  Limited confidence

  Domain evidence →Reuters Institute, University of Oxford / Jane Suiter · Opening paragraphs (trust 42%, down 9 points)

• Weakness: The voting system also needs to be accessible. The Electoral Commission’s review of the May 2026 elections recommends improving the Voter Authority Certificate; votes-to-seats comparisons alone do not capture barriers to participation.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · Electoral Commission, 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Electoral Commission · How voters found the May 2026 elections

• Weakness: Votes and seats can diverge sharply: Labour won 33.7% of votes and 63.2% of seats in 2024, and 554 of 650 MPs won with less than half their local vote.

  Linked proposals: Give electoral reform an informed public decision process; Compare voting systems without pretending votes stay unchanged

  United Kingdom · 4 July 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · National results; constituency results (site calculation)

• Weakness: No single measure captures democratic quality: the 2024 votes–seats gap was the widest on a consistent basis since 1997, but proportionality, a local representative and a clear route to removing a government pull in different directions.

  Linked proposals: Give electoral reform an informed public decision process; Compare voting systems without pretending votes stay unchanged

  High confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library · Reviewed national results 1997–2024, five-group Gallagher calculationHouse of Commons Library

• Risk: Every party has a stake in the rules that elect it, and fixed-vote “what if” tables are easily presented as forecasts, though voters and parties would behave differently under other rules.

  Linked proposals: Compare voting systems without pretending votes stay unchanged; Give electoral reform an informed public decision process

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →House of Commons Library

• Weakness: Our dated assessment finds 9 of 12 tracked commitments without a date, cost and delivery mechanism, and 0 of 12 with a measured result — a plan is not an outcome.

  Linked proposals: Give every commitment an owner, budget and measurable result; Tie spending decisions to realistic outcomes and costs

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Prime Minister’s Office (gov.uk)

• Weakness: The NAO’s 2024 audit found outcome delivery plans had not been republished since July 2021. Treasury subsequently proposed annual strategic plans for 2026; the older audit cannot establish today’s publication status across every department.

  Linked proposals: Give every commitment an owner, budget and measurable result

  UK central government · July 2021 to October 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Paragraph 1.17 (printed p.18)HM Treasury · Table 0.1, planning and performance

• Risk: The NAO found that shared-service delivery remained at risk from unclear central ownership, weak technical leadership and incompatible systems. This is a specific programme risk assessed before the current government took office.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  UK central government · March 2026 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Risk: Optimistic costs, target gaming and changing priorities can hide slippage; the NAO finds government prone to under-estimate costs and over-promise outcomes.

  Linked proposals: Tie spending decisions to realistic outcomes and costs

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Paragraph 2.52 (printed p.40)

• Weakness: The 11 tracked pledges include 1 without a defined baseline. Without a sufficiently defined or evidenced test: 1; too early to judge: 0. The remaining 10 can be graded in this review.

  Linked proposals: Give every commitment an owner, budget and measurable result

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Labour Party

• Weakness: The IFS found neither main manifesto faced up to the fiscal choices: plausible settlements implied cuts of £10–20 billion a year to other services, which the pledges did not acknowledge.

  Linked proposals: Apply the same independent costing test to every manifesto; Show tax choices with their real trade-offs

  United Kingdom · June 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Opening remarks, PDF p.2

• Risk: Changing a pledge’s definition after the fact, grading it on a proxy, or treating missing evidence as failure would bias the verdicts in either direction.

  Linked proposals: Give every commitment an owner, budget and measurable result

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Paragraph 2.16 (metrics not well aligned to intended outcomes)

• Weakness: 5 of 7 parties published a costings table (not SNP or Plaid Cymru), and those tables use different years and bases, so they cannot be ranked on one scale.

  Linked proposals: Apply the same independent costing test to every manifesto

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →SNPPlaid CymruInstitute for Fiscal Studies · Opening remarks, PDF p.2 (“so-called fully costed manifestos”)

• Weakness: Almost all parties counted on raising £5 billion or more from tackling tax evasion and avoidance — a yield the IFS treated as uncertain.

  Linked proposals: Apply the same independent costing test to every manifesto; Give every commitment an owner, budget and measurable result

  United Kingdom · June 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Opening remarks, PDF p.3

• Risk: Incomplete coverage of national and devolved parties, selective presentation, and treating a 2024 pledge as current policy could all mislead readers.

  Linked proposals: Apply the same independent costing test to every manifesto

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Institute for Fiscal Studies · Event page (distinguish proposals from enacted policy)

• Weakness: Small leads are hard to read: the BPC’s own standard statement says that, on recent elections, there is only a 9 in 10 chance a party’s true support is within 4 points of a poll’s estimate.

  Linked proposals: Test polling summaries against past errors before publishing them

  United Kingdom · Rules in force, checked October 2026 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →British Polling Council · Further information: BPC statement on uncertainty

• Weakness: Polls can be wrong together: the 19 final polls of 2024 averaged 38.6% for Labour against a result of 34.7% (+3.9 points), the largest overestimate of Labour since 1979.

  Linked proposals: Test polling summaries against past errors before publishing them; Make every poll traceable to its methods

  Great Britain · General election, 4 July 2024 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →British Polling Council · Final polls tableBritish Polling Council · Summary bullet: systematic polling error

• Risk: Shared systematic error and confident headlines can persist however many polls are published; constituency projections (MRP) carry extra uncertainty that media often present as certainty.

  Linked proposals: Test polling summaries against past errors before publishing them; Make every poll traceable to its methods

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →British Polling Council · Summary bullets: MRP developments; media representation concernsBritish Polling Council · MRP overview table

• Weakness: The wider workbench is unavailable: its dials mixed estimates from different years and definitions with no stated baseline or range, so most policy questions have no interactive tool.

  Linked proposals: Make policy models reproducible before expanding the workbench (private preview)

  High confidence

  Domain evidence → (private preview)HM Treasury · Chapters 6–9 (the standard the dials did not meet)

• Risk: False precision, stale tax and benefit baselines after a fiscal event, and extrapolation beyond supported inputs can mislead users even when the arithmetic is right.

  Linked proposals: Make policy models reproducible before expanding the workbench (private preview)

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence → (private preview)HM Treasury · Optimism bias; uncertainty

• Weakness: The NAO found weak commissioning and targeting of NHS Health Checks. Fewer than half the annual eligible population attended in 2023/24, and follow-up data were insufficient for routine assessment of health outcomes. These are audit-period findings, not current attendance or proof that every check prevents illness.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2023/24; November 2024 audit · High confidence

  Domain evidence →National Audit Office · Conclusions

• Weakness: Healthy life expectancy at birth fell from 62.7 to 60.7 years for men and from 63.7 to 60.9 for women.

  Linked proposals: Build family hubs around what worked; Introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in England

  United Kingdom · 2011–13 to 2022–24 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Dataset “Healthy life expectancy, UK”, Table 1

• Weakness: Preventable heart and stroke deaths before 75 were 61.6 per 100,000 in the most deprived tenth of areas against 16.2 in the least deprived.

  Linked proposals: Introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in England

  England · 2022 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Health Improvement and Disparities · Indicator 93722 (E04b), LSOA21 deprivation deciles

• Weakness: 25.8% of 16–24-year-olds had a common mental health condition in 2023/4, against 17.5% in 2007.

  Linked proposals: Test mental-health support in schools; Offer evidence-based employment support alongside healthcare

  England · 2007 to 2023/4 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Chapter 1: Common mental health conditions

• Weakness: Alcohol-specific deaths in England were 13.8 per 100,000 people in 2024. The rate fell on 2023, but across the UK it was still 14.8 against 11.8 in 2019, and within England it ranged from 10.9 in London to 21.1 in the North East.

  Linked proposals: Introduce minimum unit pricing for alcohol in England

  England (comparison: United Kingdom) · Deaths registered in 2024 (UK comparison: 2019) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Section 1 (main points); section 3 (constituent countries); English regions

• Weakness: About half of adults with symptoms of a common mental health condition were receiving any treatment in 2023/4 (47.7% of 16–74-year-olds; 17.9% psychological therapy). In NHS Talking Therapies, 40.7% of people finishing treatment in the most deprived tenth of areas reliably recovered in 2025–26, against 52.7% in the least deprived.

  Linked proposals: Get effective depression treatment to adults missing out

  England · 2023/4 (survey); 2025–26 (service data) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Table 2.11 (adults 16–74 with symptoms; CIs in Table B1)NHS England Digital · Main CSV, England, deprivation decile rows

• Weakness: Smoking is concentrated in routine and manual work: 16.6% of adults aged 18–64 in routine and manual occupations smoked in 2025, against 5.9% in managerial and professional jobs. Stop smoking services recorded 265,502 quit dates in 2025–26, below the around 360,000 a year the 2023 plan expected.

  Linked proposals: Make effective smoking treatment reach more people

  England · 2025 (prevalence); 2025–26 (services) · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Section 5, Figure 4 and Table_7 (England, by occupation)NHS England · Table 1.1Department of Health and Social Care · Local stop smoking services section

• Risk: School mental health teams are being rolled out to every school by 2029–30 without a published measure of what they change for children, so a national service could be complete before anyone knows whether it works.

  Linked proposals: Test mental-health support in schools

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NIHR Health and Social Care Delivery Research 11(8) · AbstractHM Treasury · Paragraph 5.16c, p.59

• Risk: Healthy life expectancy rests on a shrinking survey and an interim ONS method, so a real change of a few months may not be detectable for years.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Bulletin: measuring the data

• Risk: Hot summers already cost lives: UKHSA estimated 1,504 heat-associated deaths in England in summer 2025 (677 of them in care homes) and 2,985 in 2022, and an interim 2,877 in the May and June 2026 heatwaves alone; the Climate Change Committee warns heat-related deaths could exceed 10,000 in an average year by 2050 as the population ages.

  Linked proposals: Make heat protection operational in vulnerable settings

  England (projection: UK) · Summers 2022 to 2025; projection to 2050 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →UK Health Security Agency · News story, opening paragraphsUK Health Security Agency · Observed mortality by place of deathUK Health Security Agency · Opening paragraphs (interim, May and June 2026)Climate Change Committee · Executive summary, printed p.12

• Weakness: Councils overspent their adult social care budgets by about £715 million in 2025-26 and more than 400,000 people were waiting for an assessment, care, a direct payment or a review. This is a sector survey of directors, not an official statistic, and the page does not state a response rate.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2025-26 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Association of Directors of Adult Social Services · Headline findings

• Weakness: CQC identifies shortages in homecare and reablement, alongside providers returning council contracts because of costs. Its March 2025 breakdown attributes 23% of discharge delays among acute-hospital patients staying at least 14 days to social-care capacity or transfer-plan delays. This is a defined subgroup, not 23% of all occupied beds.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · CQC State of Care 2024–25, published October 2025 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Care Quality Commission · Printed pp.5 and 44

• Weakness: 24% of people aged 65 and over living at home reported some unmet need for help with personal tasks such as washing or dressing (27% of women, 21% of men).

  Linked proposals: Offer reablement to more older people leaving hospital, and judge it by whether they are still at home three months later

  England (private households) · 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →NHS England · Social care for older adults: unmet need

• Weakness: Only 5.7% of people aged 65 and over discharged from hospital were provided reablement.

  Linked proposals: Offer reablement to more older people leaving hospital, and judge it by whether they are still at home three months later

  England · 2024–25 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department of Health and Social Care · Table_2d(2)

• Weakness: About 111,000 care posts were vacant (7.0%) and 23.1% of staff left their job in a year.

  Linked proposals: A costed social-care capacity plan

  England · 2024–25 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Skills for Care · Executive summary pp.4 and 6

• Weakness: Falls led to 221,600 emergency hospital admissions of people aged 65 and over in 2024/25 — 1,958 per 100,000, below the 2,256 of 2019/20 but about 600 admissions a day.

  Linked proposals: Fit home adaptations faster for older people at high risk of falling, after an occupational-therapist hazard check

  England · 2019/20 to 2024/25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for Health Improvement and Disparities (Fingertips) · Indicator 22401, England, persons, 65+ (all-data CSV)

• Weakness: Care homes had more heat-associated deaths than any other setting in summer 2025 — an estimated 677 (95% CI 406–949), 9% above the expected level — and there is no routinely collected data on overheating or adaptation in care homes.

  Linked proposals: Make heat protection operational in vulnerable settings

  England · Summer 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →UK Health Security Agency · Observed mortality by place of deathClimate Change Committee · Printed pp.24 and 141 (no routinely collected data on care-home adaptation)

• Risk: The first Fair Pay Agreement is due in April 2028; £500m is the maximum agreed for councils in its first year and the recurring cost depends on the pay agreed, so council budgets for extra capacity could be squeezed.

  Linked proposals: A costed social-care capacity plan

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department of Health and Social Care · Executive summary; Next steps

• Risk: The national reablement outcome measure changed in 2024–25 and cannot be compared with earlier years, and 13 councils are missing from it, so national progress will be hard to judge for several years.

  Linked proposals: Offer reablement to more older people leaving hospital, and judge it by whether they are still at home three months later

  Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department of Health and Social Care · Statistical commentary, metric 2D; comparability log

• Weakness: In May 2024, 8% of UK adults reported falling behind on or missing bills or credit payments in at least three of the previous six months. This survey finding measures repeated difficulty, not recorded loan defaults.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom, adults aged 18 and over · May 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Financial Conduct Authority · Figure 3.9, all UK adults row; question K2

• Weakness: The same survey classed 24% of UK adults as having low financial resilience in May 2024: repeated payment difficulty, a heavy burden from bills or credit, or very limited savings. This overlaps with people missing payments; the percentages cannot be added.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom, adults aged 18 and over · May 2024 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Financial Conduct Authority · Figures 3.6 and 3.9

• Risk: If income falls or essential costs rise, repayments that were manageable can become unaffordable. A temporary payment arrangement may not solve a lasting gap between income and bills.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Financial Conduct Authority · Working out a budget; Support from your lender

• Risk: Misleading debt adverts can steer people towards unsuitable arrangements or unexpected fees. A promise to write off debt is not evidence that a solution suits the person.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Financial Conduct Authority · How some debt products are advertised

• Weakness: For a median full-time earner who rents while saving and then buys the average home, the home now takes 74p of every £1 of take-home pay. 30 years ago it took 37p. This is a worked example under stated assumptions, not every household.

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in

  United Kingdom (worked example) · 1996 and 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Land Registry, ONS, Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services · Average price, UK, monthly seriesOffice for National Statistics · Median gross weekly earnings, full-time employees

• Weakness: Saving the deposit for the average home takes about 13.6 years of saving now, against 2.3 years 30 years ago, on the same saving rate. The deposit rose from £5,342 to £87,897.

  Linked proposals: Turn permissions into homes people can live in

  United Kingdom (worked example) · 1996 and 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Land Registry, ONS, Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services · Average price, UK, monthly seriesOffice for National Statistics · Median gross weekly earnings, full-time employees

• Weakness: Renting the average private home takes 50% of a median full-time earner’s take-home pay, against 32% 30 years ago. The two years come from different rent sources, so the comparison is approximate.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom (worked example) · 1996-97 and 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Office for National Statistics · Average private rent, UK, monthlyOffice for National Statistics · Median gross weekly earnings, full-time employees

• Weakness: Home ownership among households headed by 25 to 34 year olds fell from 58.6% in 2003-04 to 47.7% in 2024-25. Young adults still living with parents are not counted, so the fall in young people with a home of their own may be larger.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  England · 2003-04 to 2024-25 · High confidence

  Domain evidence →Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Headline report, Annex Table 1.4 (households headed by 25 to 34 year olds)

• Weakness: The same amount of gas and electricity cost £593 a year 30 years ago and £2,225 now. Against take-home pay that is 36% heavier. When bills outrun pay, low-income households are the first to choose between heating and eating.

  Linked proposals: Warm homes, inspected before payment; Make electricity pricing support cheaper clean heating

  United Kingdom (GB price cap for 2025) · 1996 and 2025 · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Energy Security and Net Zero · Tables 2.2.1 and 2.3.1Ofgem · Unit rates and standing charges, four 2025 cap periods

• Risk: If house prices and rents keep rising faster than take-home pay, the cost falls on people who have not yet bought, mostly younger adults and renters, while outright owners are largely shielded. The gap between those with a home and those without can keep widening.

  Assessment gap: No canonical action is explicitly linked to this issue. Possible responses still need a traceable assessment; this is not evidence that no response exists.

  United Kingdom · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →HM Land Registry, ONS, Registers of Scotland and Land and Property Services · Average price, UK, monthly seriesMinistry of Housing, Communities and Local Government · Headline report, Annex Table 1.4 (households headed by 25 to 34 year olds)

• Risk: Another rise in the energy price cap would hit low-income households in inefficient homes hardest. About 2.36 million households in England (9.4%) were projected to be in fuel poverty in 2025; this is a DESNZ projection, not a final survey count.

  Linked proposals: Warm homes, inspected before payment

  England (fuel poverty); Great Britain (price cap) · Moderate confidence

  Domain evidence →Department for Energy Security and Net Zero · Report p.1Ofgem · Unit rates and standing charges