downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 97535.98articles per million people
- Year
- 2023. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.JRN.ARTC.SC)
- History
United Kingdom
Strongest usable evidence: Learning, at 80.3. Coordination needs more evidence: confidence is 0.23.
Raise, lowest first
No low-scoring dimension has usable evidence.
Measure before managing
| Dimension | Confidence | Score |
|---|---|---|
| Coordination | 0.23 | 90.5 |
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 75.6 |
| Trust | 0.29 | 90.5 |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 70.2 |
| Agency | 0.41 | 92.7 |
These lists are the country's capability agenda, computed from the scores. Read the full agenda. It names comparable evidence from other countries and the 18 gaps in the registry.
Why this country is included: Services and finance concentration with weak recent productivity growth.
Anticipation71.8Confidence0.46usableHow capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
United Kingdom
Read United Kingdom beside up to three other countries, down to the indicator behind every row.
- Usable or good evidence
- Thin evidence, hollow point. The dashes open further as confidence falls.
- The point still sits at the score, because confidence never moves it.
- Click any axis to see every country on that dimension.
A score from 0 to 100 is a position inside the frame that all the benchmark countries set: zero is the weakest on a dimension and 100 is the strongest. A score of 10 puts a country near the floor of that frame and does not mean 10 percent of a capability.
| Agency | 0.41 | 3 of 5 | 0.72 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Coordination | 0.23 | 2 of 5 | 0.79 | no trend | 75.0 | -15.5 | |
| Trust | 0.29 | 3 of 7 | 0.86 | no trend | 78.0 | -12.5 | |
| Learning | 0.55 | 3 of 4 | 0.81 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Shared Purpose | 0.28 | 2 of 6 | 0.88 | +3.3(2) | 55.0 | -20.6 | |
| Anticipation | 0.46 | 2 of 4 | 0.96 | +3.3(2) | 69.0 | -2.8 | |
| Adaptability | 0.62 | 4 of 6 | 1.00 | no trend | no data | no estimate | |
| Experimentation | 0.33 | 4 of 9 | 0.81 | +20.7(3) | no data | no estimate | |
| Building | 0.57 | 4 of 6 | 0.90 | +0.3(3) | no data | no estimate |
How to read this page
Each dimension has a score from 0 to 100. It shows where this country sits among all 125 countries in the comparison frame, not a percentage. Confidence sits beside the score. A dashed radar edge and hollow point mean the evidence is thin. The records below show each indicator, its raw value, year and source.
A panel estimate, when present, is a separate judgment about what the indicators miss. It does not change the score or confidence. The panel's provenance is shown beside the estimate.
- direct capability measuredirect capability measure Measures the thing itself.
- capability inputcapability input Measures something that supports the capability.
- downstream outcomedownstream outcome Measures a result that usually follows from the capability.
- perception proxyperception proxy Records what people or experts say, not what they did.
Confidence
- very thin0.00 to 0.25
The score rests on one or two indicators. Do not quote it on its own.
- thin0.25 to 0.45
A minority of indicators, or evidence old enough to have moved. Read with care.
- usable0.45 to 0.65
Enough evidence to compare countries, with known holes.
- good0.65 and above
Most indicators observed, recent, from official or intergovernmental sources.
A row marked no dataset exists is a gap: the benchmark wants data that nobody publishes. A retired row has a source this project chose not to use. Both reduce confidence. The glossary defines each term, and the limits page lists where these numbers are known to be wrong about the world.
Anticipation
How capable is the country of identifying and preparing for emerging change?
+3.3 over 10 years, from 68.5 in 2016 to 71.8 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 88.378index 0-100
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IQ.SPI.OVRL)
- History
Government foresight capacity
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable international dataset. OECD and UN work is descriptive, not scored. Envisioning would have to build this.
Long-horizon research commitments
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of new grants
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the share of R&D spending classed as basic research, which is the make-up of a spending stock, the construct D142 retired business R&D share for. OECD MSTI publishes that share for its members only, and UNESCO UIS no longer serves R&D by type of research (construct audit, 2026-10-02). The behaviour behind it is a funder committing to a horizon: a grant awarded for five years or more is a decision to wait for a result. Untried: no memo has triaged a grant register. National funders publish award lists one by one with their own durations, and commercial grant aggregators fail the inspectability rule. Wireable on a grant-level register with award and end dates, on one definition of a competitive public grant, for half the frame or more.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
R&D expenditureWorld Bank (GB.XPD.RSDV.GD.ZS), 2023
2.7 % of GDP, rank 12 of 118. Gross domestic expenditure on research and development as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: money committed to research is what a country spends, and spending it does not show the country reads the future well (D122).
Researchers in R&DWorld Bank (SP.POP.SCIE.RD.P6), 2017
4,473 per million people, rank 25 of 114. Full-time-equivalent researchers per million people.
A condition, not scored: a standing stock of people who could investigate is what a country has, not a record of what they found (D122). Correlates with income but survives size normalization.
Secure internet serversWorld Bank (IT.NET.SECR.P6), 2024
68,395 per million people, rank 14 of 125. Servers using encryption in internet transactions, per million people.
A condition, not scored: a diffusion stock of digital adoption that money buys, not an act of anticipation (D122). Spans four orders of magnitude, so its rank is read on the published value and its correlations on the logged one.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Legally binding carbon budgets
The United Kingdom's 2008 Climate Change Act made five-year emissions budgets a standing legal cycle set twelve years ahead, and by July 2026 seven budgets covered 2008 through 2042 while the first three had been met.
7 five-year budgets, carbon budgets set in law, 2026-07. 3 five-year budgets, completed carbon budgets met, 2024. UK Department for Energy Security and Net Zero, carbon budgets guidance, retrieved 2026-08-30.
How it worked: Parliament requires each government to set a quantified five-year ceiling twelve years in advance, receive independent advice, publish a delivery plan and report the final account, converting a distant target into a recurring decision and scrutiny cycle.
Limits: A statutory cycle and three budgets met show continuity and compliance with a national accounting framework, not that the framework caused the emissions reductions or that budgets four to seven will be delivered. Territorial accounts omit emissions embodied in imports, and government reports its own compliance even though an independent Climate Change Committee advises and scrutinises it.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 69.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.50
I hold near 70: the National Risk Register, the Government Office for Science, the Climate Change Committee's statutory carbon budgets, the OBR's long-run fiscal reports and ARIA are durable anticipatory institutions. Panelist C's flood-defence and stockpile record adds to the COVID Inquiry finding that formal capacity outruns use, trimming one point.
- 69.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
The National Risk Register, Government Office for Science, Climate Change Committee carbon budgets and ARIA are real anticipatory machinery, and the vaccine taskforce acted early. The Covid Inquiry finding that planning targeted the wrong threat and C's point about stockpiles and flood defences show uneven follow-through, so I trim one point.
- 66.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
I move up two: the National Risk Register, carbon budgets and the 2020 vaccine taskforce are formal and acted-on anticipation. The Covid Inquiry finding that planning targeted the wrong threat, plus flood and stockpile follow-through, keep me below the indicator.
Agency
How able are individuals and organizations to turn an intention into action?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 19.191per 1,000 aged 15-64
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.BUS.NDNS.ZS)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 4.5days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.DURS.MA.DY)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 4count
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.REG.PROC.MA.NO)
- History
Adults doing digital tasks
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- ITU / UNESCO UIS (SDG 4.4.1, ICT skills by type)
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked whether adults can perform standard digital tasks, which reads a skill level, the kind of stock D122 moved out of the scores with internet users. It now counts the act: a person who did the task. It is not the internet users condition beside it, which counts access. Candidate: ITU ICT skills by type (SDG 4.4.1) through the UNESCO UIS API, probed 2026-10-02. Sent a message with an attached file reaches 33 of the 53 countries then in the frame, 25 at 2018 or later, with no United States, India or China and most of Africa and Central America missing; two other task items reach 31 and 16. The items are self-reported and the task list has changed between rounds. Wireable on one task observed for half the frame or more at 2018 or later.
Perceived control over life
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no datamean 1-10
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A173)
- History
- no data
Note: A perception: the publisher-weighted mean, on a 1 to 10 scale, of how much freedom of choice and control respondents feel they have over the way their life turns out, from the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. It observes the felt capacity to act, not action. The table prints the mean to one decimal and no top-box share, so the row stores the mean and ties are common. Fieldwork years differ by up to six years: the 37 countries emitted were surveyed between 2017 (eight, the US among them) and 2023 (India), and every value is stamped with the release year 2022. Response style on 10-point scales differs across cultures, and a closed autocracy can read high: Vietnam and Nicaragua sit near the top of the frame. Countries with separate EVS and WVS samples (Germany, the United Kingdom, the Netherlands) are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D127 and A15.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Individuals using the internetWorld Bank (IT.NET.USER.ZS), 2024
95.5 % of population, rank 15 of 125. Share of the population that used the internet in the last three months.
A condition, not scored: access to the basic tool of modern agency is what people have to act with, not a record of them acting (D122). Saturates near 95%, which compresses the top of the range.
Financial account ownershipWorld Bank (FX.OWN.TOTL.ZS), 2024
99.3 % aged 15+, rank 3 of 122. Adults with an account at a bank or mobile money provider.
A condition, not scored: holding an account is the precondition for almost any economic action, not the action (D122). Global Findex, published every three years.
Credit to the private sectorWorld Bank (FS.AST.PRVT.GD.ZS), 2024
112 % of GDP, rank 16 of 124. Domestic credit provided to the private sector by financial corporations.
A condition, not scored: financial depth is a stock of money available to actors, not what they do with it (D122). High values can also signal a credit bubble, so more is not always better.
Coordination
How effectively can independent actors organize around shared objectives?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Government effectiveness
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_GE.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The WGI aggregate the opinions of experts and firms, and in this set the four WGI series correlate with each other between 0.93 and 0.98 while correlating with log GDP per capita at 0.91. That is one perception of national wealth counted in three dimensions. Cross-agency delivery records are the replacement and they are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Regulatory quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RQ.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. Same measurement as government effectiveness, filed under a different name, correlating with it above 0.93. See D23 and A4.
Logistics performance
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.OVRL.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. The LPI is a survey of international freight forwarders, so it records how a country looks to global logistics firms. A small country with a small port scores low whatever its state can organise, which is artefact A9. Container throughput and border time are observable and stay. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 24hours
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TRD.ACRS.BRDR.EXPT.BRDR.COMP.HR.DB1619)
- History
Budget execution fidelity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no datapercentage points from approved budget
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GF.XPD.BUDG.ZS)
- History
- no data
Note: Observable alignment between an approved public plan and what government spent. The API covers 113 of 125 countries, with a latest year between 2016 and 2024. Values above and below 100 both indicate deviation, so the transform measures absolute distance from the approved budget rather than rewarding overspending. See D55.
University-industry collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Innovation Index
- History
- no data
Note: GII carries it, but the underlying item is a WEF executive opinion survey whose microdata is not inspectable. Excluded on principle 4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.889index 0-1
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2x_cspart)
- History
- one year
Public-private collaboration
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No comparable dataset. PPP investment databases measure infrastructure finance, not collaboration capacity.
Behavioral check, not scored
Each number below is published beside the score and stays out of it. It is not in the frame, the average, the indicator count or the confidence.
Customs clearance time for exportsWorld Bank (IC.CUS.DURS.EX), 2024
5.538 days, lower is better. Average number of days to clear direct exports through customs, as reported by manufacturing firms that export directly, in the World Bank Enterprise Surveys.
Days a manufacturer that exports directly says its goods took to clear customs, from the World Bank Enterprise Surveys. It is the time the border took on firms' own shipments, current where the Doing Business border time this capability scores is frozen at 2019. It is not scored for two reasons. The number of firms behind each country's figure is published only in the survey microdata, and on a proxy from the published tables 37 of the 53 countries in the frame when it was checked clear 30 exporting firms; Mexico, the Philippines, Israel and nine others may not. And the question changed: surveys fielded from 2024 also ask how long release took across all border agencies, and drop an answer where customs alone took longer, so a country surveyed on both sides of the change can move severalfold with nothing at its border changing. India reads 17.3 days in 2022 and 2.5 in 2025, on more than 9,000 firms each time. No country in the frame has two surveys on the new questionnaire yet. Income is not why it is left out: it barely tracks log GDP per capita.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Knowledge Transfer Partnerships
UKRI reported more than 1,000 Knowledge Transfer Partnerships running at one time and more than 1,100 Associate projects in May 2026, joining businesses with universities or other research organisations through jointly supervised innovation work.
1,000 partnerships, knowledge transfer partnerships running, 2026-05-08. 1,100 projects, ktp associate projects, 2026-05-08. UK Research and Innovation, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships overview, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: Innovate UK funds a three-way arrangement in which a business names a strategic problem, a university or research organisation supplies expertise and a graduate associate works inside the firm under joint supervision. The structure gives firms absorptive capacity while giving academic knowledge a route into operations.
Limits: The partnership and project counts show programme scale, not whether collaborations produce durable productivity, patents, spinouts or jobs. UKRI reports the programme's administrative totals and benefit estimates; participation is not a representative sample of all UK firms or universities, and the figures do not provide a counterfactual against which the programme's effects can be judged.
Private Finance Initiative and PF2, and their abolition
HM Treasury's Private Finance Initiative signed on average 55 contracts a year between 1997 and 2010 and left 704 current PFI and PF2 projects with a capital value of £57 billion at 31 March 2018, after signings fell to an average of nine a year after May 2010 and the Chancellor announced at Budget 2018 that the government would no longer use PF2 for new projects.
704 projects, current pfi and pf2 projects (in operation or construction), 2018-03-31. 55 contracts per year, average pfi contracts signed per year, 1997 to 2010 (peak era; 9 a year after may 2010), 1997-2010. HM Treasury and Infrastructure and Projects Authority, Private Finance Initiative and Private Finance 2 projects: 2018 summary data, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: HM Treasury let departments and local bodies buy hospitals, schools, roads and prisons as long design-build-finance-operate contracts paid by performance-linked unitary charges, keeping the capital cost off the up-front budget; after value-for-money criticism it reformed the model as PF2 in 2012 and then stopped using it for new central-government projects in 2018.
Limits: This is a dismantling by decision of the procurement route, not of the assets: the 704 contracts keep running, with £188.35 billion of forecast unitary charges over the next 30 years, so the record shows a national collaboration model closed to new deals rather than a lost stock of hospitals and schools. The decline started well before abolition (an average of 55 signings a year from 1997 to 2010 against nine a year after May 2010), and PF2, introduced in 2012 'in response to widespread concerns about value for money', was used only six times. A hostile reviewer would say PFI is evidence of joint delivery at scale and of poor value for money at once: the scale figure says nothing about whether the risk transfer paid off, and the Carillion liquidation hit two PF2 projects. Coverage is departments and devolved administrations under standard PFI and PF2 terms only; other PPP forms such as NHS LIFT are excluded, and Scotland and Wales run their own models that the 2018 announcement did not affect. The 1992 start year is not stated in the document, whose earliest year is 1997. The figures are in a PDF: the 55-a-year and nine-a-year averages and the PF2 announcement on PDF page 5 (paragraphs 1.5 and 1.6), the 704 projects and £57 billion on PDF page 8 (paragraphs 2.2 and 2.3). The publication is HM Treasury reporting on its own programme.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 75.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
I hold at 75: strong civil society and fast border processing sit against a centralised Whitehall with weak local government and a record of failed cross-department programmes. Panelist B's 2020 mutual-aid mobilisation was real but episodic, so it does not lift me to 78.
- 76.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.40
A strong charity and mutual-aid sector that mobilised hundreds of thousands in 2020 is distributed coordination the formal rows see only in part. A centralised Whitehall with weak local government and repeated cross-departmental programme failures, which A stresses, pull it down two points.
- 74.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Civil society strength is a direct reading and I credit the 2020 mutual-aid mobilisation. Two scored rows are missing, border time is a trade proxy, and centralisation with fragmented delivery bodies weighs against, so I sit in the panel's range.
Trust
How much cooperation is possible beyond immediate personal networks?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
Rule of law
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_RL.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite correlating with control of corruption above 0.95 and with log GDP per capita at 0.83. Court throughput and case clearance rates are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
Control of corruption
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataz-score -2.5 to 2.5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (GOV_WGI_CC.EST)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. A WGI perception composite. It measures reputation for corruption, which is not the same thing as corruption, and it tracks income closely. Prosecution and audit records are the observable replacement and are a declared gap. See D23 and A4.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 437days
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (ENF.CONT.DURS.DY)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 2.067% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.BRIB.ZS)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.549scale 0-4 (never to always)
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- V-Dem (v2jucomp_osp)
- History
- one year
Intentional homicide rate
downstream outcomeretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataper 100,000 people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (VC.IHR.PSRC.P5)
- History
- no data
Note: Added 2026-08-26 by D23 as the observable replacement for two retired WGI perception composites, and retired 2026-08-27 by D44 when the diagnostic built in D42 measured what it was doing. It raised this dimension's correlation with log GDP per capita by 0.288, from 0.096 to 0.385, the largest single wealth contribution anywhere in the model. It was added to fix wealth contamination and it was the wealth contamination. The dataset is sound and the objection is to what it measures here: homicide is driven heavily by organised crime, a society can be physically safe while trusting very little, and across this country set the variation it carries is mostly income. Behavioural trust measures remain a gap.
Generalised interpersonal trust
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% agreeing
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (A165)
- History
- no data
Note: Share answering that most people can be trusted in the official Joint EVS/WVS 2017-2022 results table, release 5.0.0. The adapter uses the publisher-weighted country results, emits only countries with one survey row, and holds countries with separate EVS and WVS samples until the respondent-level weights can be pooled reproducibly. See D57 and D64.
Trust in public institutions
perception proxyno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% expressing confidence
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD Trust Survey / WVS
- History
- no data
Note: The OECD survey covers members only. Mixing it with WVS items for India and South Africa would break comparability. The Joint EVS/WVS confidence battery (E069) reaches 37 countries from one release, and confidence in the courts (E069_17) is published beside Trust as a check under this id rather than scored: every item of the battery tested (courts, civil service, police, parliament and government) reads higher in the closed and electoral autocracies of the frame than in its democracies, which is deference as much as confidence (A13). The gap stays open for a measure that does not reward a court that cannot rule against the state. See D132.
Cooperation beyond the in-group
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% expressing trust
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Joint EVS/WVS (G007_34_B)
- History
- no data
Note: The distinction that makes this dimension worth measuring: whether trust reaches a person with no tie to the respondent. Generalised trust asks about "most people", which a respondent can fill with their own circle; this item names the stranger. China is the clearest case, high on most people and low on a person met for the first time. The value is the publisher-weighted share answering trust completely plus the share answering trust somewhat, the one sum of two printed columns the adapter stores, exact to about 0.1, over all respondents including don't know and no answer. EVS and WVS ask the same question on the same four-point scale; where one country has both samples, the WVS share is a median 2.2 points higher. Trust in people of another nationality (G007_36_B), which the row once also named, is left out because it reads attitudes to foreigners as much as trust. Fieldwork runs from 2017 to 2023 and every value carries the release year 2022. Germany, the United Kingdom and the Netherlands are held, as for interpersonal trust. See D140.
Court case clearance rate
downstream outcomeno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of incoming cases
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- CEPEJ / OECD / national court statistics
- History
- no data
Note: Whether a court finishes what it starts, counted from case records rather than asked in a survey. D23 named it as the observable replacement for the two retired WGI composites and it has stayed unfilled since. CEPEJ publishes it for Council of Europe members and OECD for its own members, so no single publisher reaches this country set, and a harmonised series needs the project second source adapter. See D57.
Panel estimate, round 2, how this layer works
- 77.0 institutionalist@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Panelist B's point on the sharp rise in court backlogs since 2020 is a direct hit on the court-throughput channel, so I trim to 77. Independent courts that government obeys and low firm bribery remain a strong institutional base.
- 78.0 bottom_up@claude-opus-5-5, self-confidence 0.45
Low bribery, binding courts and fast contract enforcement are strong, and charity giving and volunteering show cooperation beyond kin. Middling generalised trust, the post-2020 court backlog and procurement scandals keep it below the indicator; the panel agrees and I hold.
- 78.0 wealth_sceptic@claude-sonnet-5-5, self-confidence 0.35
Panel is unanimous at 78 and I agree: low bribery, binding courts and fast enforcement are conduct signals, but they are the typical rich-democracy profile, and middling interpersonal trust and a worsening court backlog stop me going higher.
Learning
How effectively does the country acquire, distribute, and update knowledge?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.783index 0-1
- Year
- 2020. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (HD.HCI.OVRL)
- History
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 57.47% of firms
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.FRM.TRNG.ZS)
- History
- one year
Adult learning participation
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no data% of adults
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Eurostat / OECD PIAAC
- History
- no data
Note: The best available measure of continuous learning capacity, and it exists only for European and OECD members.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1.785ratio to world average
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- OpenAlex (citation_normalized_percentile.is_in_top_10_percent)
- History
- one year
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Tertiary enrolmentWorld Bank (SE.TER.ENRR), 2023
80.4 % gross, rank 22 of 124. Gross enrolment ratio in tertiary education.
A condition, not scored: enrolment counts people in formal education and records nothing learned (D122).
Public education expenditureWorld Bank (SE.XPD.TOTL.GD.ZS), 2021
5.9 % of GDP, rank 18 of 125. Government expenditure on education as a share of GDP.
A condition, not scored: public spending on education is a pure input, and learning is what the dimension asks about (D122).
Vocational share of secondaryWorld Bank (SE.SEC.ENRL.VO.ZS), 2018
31.8 % of secondary, rank 16 of 125. Vocational pupils as a share of total secondary enrolment.
A condition, not scored: the share of secondary pupils on a vocational track describes how a school system is built, not what anyone learns in it, and higher is not unambiguously better (D141). It marks a route into skilled work that does not run through university. Learning reads research citation impact, firm training and the human capital index instead.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Government-funded adult further education in England, and its erosion
Participation of adults aged 19 and over in government-funded further education and skills in England fell from a recent peak of nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13 to 1.6 million in 2020/21, and stood at 1,798,970 in 2024/25, according to the Department for Education.
1,798,970 learners, adult (19+) further education and skills participation, education and training plus adult apprenticeships, england, 2024/25 academic year. 3,300,000 learners, adult (19+) further education and skills participation at the most recent peak, as published (rounded, 'nearly 3.3 million'), 2012/13 academic year. Department for Education, Further education and skills, academic year 2024/25 (accredited official statistics), section 'Total adult (19+) activity in further education and skills (including apprenticeships)', retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Department for Education funds colleges, local authorities and training providers through a national adult skills budget and later loans and apprenticeship levy funding, and counts every funded learner through a single administrative return. Real-terms cuts to the adult budget and the move of level 3 and above provision onto learner loans roughly halved adult participation within a decade.
Limits: The peak is published only as rounded prose ('nearly 3.3 million learners in 2012/13'), so the second metric is a rounded figure and the fall to 1,798,970 (about 45 percent) is approximate. The department calls 2012/13 the 'most recent peak', which implies earlier years may have been higher; the record does not claim the series' all-time high. The release also warns that the 2024/25 introduction of the Adult Skills Fund and tailored learning breaks the long-running Education and Training time series, although it says total further education and skills volumes are unaffected. Participation counts learners on government-funded or loan-funded provision recorded on the Individualised Learner Record, so adults in employer-paid, private or university learning are outside it, and it is England only, not the United Kingdom. The total includes adult apprenticeships, whose own funding reforms moved volumes independently of the adult skills budget. A headcount cannot show course length or level, so some of the fall may reflect a change in the mix of courses rather than fewer adults learning. The rise to 1.8 million in 2022/23 and 2023/24 came mostly from Multiply and Skills Bootcamps, according to the release, and Multiply funding stopped in March 2025. The 1992 start date is the Further and Higher Education Act that created the funded further education sector; it is not stated at the source URL.
Experimentation
How easily can new approaches be attempted, tested, abandoned, and improved?
+20.7 over 10 years, from 62.3 in 2016 to 83.0 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
+15.8 over 20 years, from 58.7 in 2006 to 74.5 on 2 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 11592per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.PAT.RESD)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 223508per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.TMK.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 28299per million people
- Year
- 2021. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IP.IDS.RSCT)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 1260436per million people
- Year
- 2026. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- GitHub Innovation Graph (data/repositories.csv)
- History
- no data
Venture deals
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD / national VC associations
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The id keeps its first name so evidence records, links and published files still resolve. The row asked for venture capital deployed as a share of GDP, a level of financial depth of the kind private credit is (D122). A count of first rounds counts attempts started with outside risk money, which is what this capability asks about, and a large round counts once. Candidates, none wireable: the OECD SME and Entrepreneurship Financing scoreboard carried venture capital for 6 of the 16 countries the frame held on 2026-08-26, as amounts in national currency, latest year 2022, with Brazil, India, South Africa and Singapore absent (D21); national venture capital associations publish counts on their own definitions; commercial deal databases cover the world and are not inspectable (D10). Wireable on an inspectable deal count with one definition of a first round for half the frame or more. Read A1 before treating this dimension as measured.
Early-stage entrepreneurial activity
direct capability measuremissing- Raw value
- no data% aged 18-64
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, TEA rate)
- History
- no data
Note: From the GEM Adult Population Survey, entered by hand because GEM has no open API. TEA counts every new business, so necessity self-employment scores the same as a funded startup, which is why Chile and Argentina sit above the United States here. Read it as how many people are trying, not as how much value the attempts create. GEM does not run every economy every year: Singapore last took part in 2014 and the recency term marks that value down hard.
Tolerance of entrepreneurial failure
perception proxymissing- Raw value
- no data% not deterred
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- Global Entrepreneurship Monitor (APS key indicators, fear of failure rate)
- History
- no data
Note: Stored as 100 minus the published GEM fear of failure rate, so the direction matches the rest of the registry. GEM measures that rate among adults who already see good opportunities, not among all adults, so the denominator differs from the label. Attitudinal: bankruptcy law and time to discharge would be the observable substitute and are still worth wiring beside it.
Firms through regulatory sandboxes
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no datafirms per million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national regulators
- History
- no data
Note: Redefined 2026-10-02 (D152). The row asked for the number and breadth of live sandboxes, which is a policy stock: a regime can exist with nobody in it. It now counts what passes through: firms a regulator let test under relaxed rules, and firms that came out, authorised, withdrawn or failed. Regulators publish cohort lists and exit reports one by one. The evidence corpus holds 22 records against this row, most of them counts of firms admitted or exited, each on the definition and window of its own regulator, and no register assembles them on one definition (O1 triage sweep, 2026-10-01). A realistic candidate for Envisioning to build from those lists. Wireable on a register that counts admissions and completions on one definition for half the frame or more.
University spinouts
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataper million people
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- national TTO associations
- History
- no data
Note: Reported nationally with incompatible definitions of what counts as a spinout.
Business share of R&D
capability inputretired, see notes- Raw value
- no data% of R&D
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD MSTI / RICYT
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-10-02. The only working source, OECD MSTI joined with RICYT for Latin America, covers 34 of the 53 countries then in the frame, but the row reads the make-up of a spending stock: who performs the R&D a country pays for. R&D spending itself is a condition since D122, and the share is high both where business research is large (Israel) and where total research is tiny and one firm dominates it (Thailand). State enterprises count as business, so China and Vietnam read their ownership model. UIS stopped publishing the series in 2023. Firms trying new things are read through patents, trademarks, designs and entrepreneurship instead. See D142.
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
The United Kingdom's financial regulator built the first regulatory sandbox in 2016, and by the end of 2022 had accepted 168 firms and products to test with real customers under supervision.
168 firms, firms and products accepted for testing since launch, 2022. Financial Conduct Authority, Innovation Hub market insights, retrieved 2026-08-27.
How it worked: The regulator wrote a bounded testing regime: a firm without full authorisation can trial a product on real customers for a fixed period, with disclosure requirements and an exit plan, while the regulator watches from inside.
Limits: The count is the regulator reporting on its own programme, and acceptance is not success: the FCA does not publish how many tests led to authorisation, funding or a product that survived. One hundred and sixty-eight firms over seven years is small next to the sector, so the number evidences that the mechanism runs, not that it moves the industry.
British Patient Capital, a public venture-capital catalyst
The British Business Bank reported that government-owned British Patient Capital had committed £2.287 billion through 80 fund commitments, 10 co-investments and 18 Future Fund deals by 31 March 2024, with an underlying portfolio of 1,350 companies.
2,287,000,000 GBP, british patient capital commitments since inception, 2024-03-31. 1,350 companies, underlying portfolio companies, 2024-03-31. British Business Bank, British Patient Capital 2023–24 full-year results, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: The UK used a public, long-horizon investment platform to anchor private funds, make selected co-investments and keep capital flowing into innovative companies that can be underserved by shorter-horizon finance. A fund-manager network spreads sourcing and specialist judgement beyond the state balance sheet.
Limits: Commitments, assets and portfolio-company counts are administrative programme totals, not venture capital as a share of GDP, additionality, exits, jobs or causal economic impact. The portfolio includes third-party fund capital and co-investments, and the figures are reported by the government-owned delivery institution rather than independently evaluating what would have happened without it.
ICURe, from university research to spinouts
UK Research and Innovation's ICURe impact report says spinout companies from the programme secured £326 million in investment funding and created more than 1,400 jobs from 2014 onward, after research teams were trained and funded to test markets before deciding whether to spin out.
326,000,000 GBP, investment secured by icure spinouts, 2024. 1,400 jobs, jobs created by icure spinouts, 2024. UK Research and Innovation, ICURe impact report, retrieved 2026-08-31.
How it worked: ICURe gives research teams funding, coaching and a disciplined market-discovery period in which they conduct more than 100 customer interviews before a university-backed go/no-go decision. Teams advised to spin out can then apply for follow-on funding, turning technology-transfer work into an investable proposition rather than treating a patent as a company.
Limits: The impact report's cumulative investment and job figures cover teams supported by ICURe and do not show the full spinout population, survival, profitability, quality of jobs, counterfactual or the programme's independent contribution. They are programme impact estimates, not a national spinout rate or a guarantee that every participating discovery should become a company.
Adaptability
How effectively can the system respond when circumstances change?
No trend is shown because too few indicators have values at both ends. The rows below still show the available history.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 4.746% of labour force
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (SL.UEM.TOTL.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 23.7% of unemployed
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- ILOSTAT (DF_UNE_TUNE_SEX_AGE_DUR_NB)
- History
- one year
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 0.16index 0-1, lower = more diversified
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- UNCTAD (US.ConcentDiversIndices)
- History
- one year
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.02% of products not exported competitively at the start
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- Harvard Growth Lab (hs92_country_product_year_4.csv (doi:10.7910/DVN/T4CHWJ))
- History
- one year
Disaster preparedness and recovery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- INFORM / UNDRR
- History
- no data
Note: No source observes a country preparing for or recovering from a real shock. INFORM publishes its lack of coping capacity apart from hazard and exposure, but that dimension averages government self-assessments and governance perception indices with stocks such as roads, phones and physicians, which is the perception layer D23 retired plus conditions money buys (D122). Sendai and WHO reporting are governments grading themselves. A warning-reach survey item is a check candidate. See the disaster preparedness memo.
Institutional responsiveness
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 1 record- Raw value
- no dataindex 0-100
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: No dataset exists. Measurable in principle from legislative and regulatory timestamps, which no one has assembled comparably.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Labour force participationWorld Bank (SL.TLF.ACTI.ZS), 2025
76.7 % aged 15+, rank 35 of 125. Share of the working-age population in the labour force.
A condition, not scored: how much of the population is in the labor force at all is what a country has to reallocate, a level set by norms, schooling and age, not a record of it reallocating (D141). Participation norms confound it, especially for India. Adaptability reads reallocation through long-term unemployment and export diversification instead.
Fixed broadband subscriptionsWorld Bank (IT.NET.BBND.P2), 2024
42.2 per 100 people, rank 13 of 125. Fixed broadband subscriptions per 100 people.
A condition, not scored: installed infrastructure is what a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D122). Penalizes mobile-first countries such as India and South Africa.
Electricity transmission lossesWorld Bank (EG.ELC.LOSS.ZS), 2024
9.9 % of output, rank 66 of 117. Power lost in transmission and distribution, including unbilled use.
A condition, not scored: the state of the grid, and whether its operator can bill what it delivers, is infrastructure a country has to change with, not a record of it changing (D141). Read it beside broadband, the other installed network beside Adaptability.
Informal employmentILOSTAT (DF_SDG_0831_SEX_ECO_RT), 2018
19.8 % of employment, rank 33 of 102. Informal employment as a share of total employment, SDG indicator 8.3.1.
A condition, not scored: how much work carries no contract, registration or social protection describes the labor market a country reallocates through, not it reallocating (D150). Read it beside the unemployment rate: where most work is informal, a person who loses a job takes any work within weeks, so a low rate is not a fluid market. Its direction for Adaptability cannot be defended, since informal work is both the slack that absorbs a shock and the precarity that keeps a worker from moving up, so the rank orders values and is not a verdict. Comparability is weak: the European values come from an income survey (EU-SILC) with a proxy definition, and the rest from labor force or household surveys processed by the ILO. ILOSTAT has no value for the United States, Canada, Australia, Japan, Singapore, Israel, Malaysia, China, the Philippines or Cuba, and some values are old (Haiti and Nicaragua 2012).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
COVID-19 Vaccine Taskforce and national vaccination rollout
The UK government set up the Vaccine Taskforce in April 2020, became the first country to authorise a COVID-19 vaccine and begin vaccination in December 2020, and by the end of October 2021 the NHS in England had given two doses to 85% of adults.
85 % of adults, share of adults in england who had received two doses, 2021-10-31. 87,000,000 doses (around), vaccine doses administered in england, 2021-10-31. National Audit Office (UK), The rollout of the COVID-19 vaccination programme in England, Session 2021-22, 25 February 2022, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The government created a Vaccine Taskforce outside normal departmental lines, gave it fast-track approval and broad indemnities to sign advance contracts with several developers before any vaccine was proven, and had the NHS deliver doses mainly through GPs and community pharmacies.
Limits: The figures cover England only, not the United Kingdom; health is devolved and Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland ran their own rollouts. The rollout responded to a shock already under way, so it shows capacity to recover, not preparation: the UK's pre-pandemic preparedness and 2020 death toll are outside this number. Uptake was uneven, at 64% among 18 to 24 year olds and 48% to 49% among some ethnic minority groups, and around 3.7 million adults were still unvaccinated at the end of January 2022. About 4.7 million doses were wasted, including 1.9 million AstraZeneca doses written off. The deaths averted figure in the same report is a UKHSA model estimate and is not used here. The data come from NHS England's own administrative reporting, analysed by the NAO.
Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme
The UK's Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme, which started in March 2020, had 8.9 million jobs on furlough at its peak on 8 May 2020 and supported 11.7 million jobs from 1.3 million employers before it closed on 30 September 2021.
8,900,000 jobs, jobs on furlough at the first-wave peak, 2020-05-08. 11,700,000 jobs, jobs supported at any time over the life of the scheme, 2021-09-30. HM Revenue and Customs, Coronavirus Job Retention Scheme statistics: 16 December 2021, retrieved 2026-10-02.
How it worked: The Treasury designed a wage subsidy covering 80 percent of a furloughed employee's pay and HMRC paid it to employers through the PAYE Real Time Information payroll system it already ran, so a new programme reached millions of jobs within weeks.
Limits: HMRC is reporting on a scheme it ran, from claims data, and the counts are jobs (employments), not people: one person furloughed from two jobs counts twice. The release dates the scheme's start as March 2020 and its daily series from 23 March 2020; the announcement date (20 March 2020) and the opening of the claims portal in April 2020 are not on this page, so the speed reading rests on the peak falling on 8 May 2020, about seven weeks after the series begins. The release says nothing about cost, deadweight (jobs that would have survived anyway) or fraud and error, which HMRC and the National Audit Office reported separately, and it cannot show whether furlough preserved jobs or delayed their loss: 1.16 million jobs were still on furlough when it closed. A new scheme built in weeks under extreme pressure says little about how fast British rules change in normal times.
Building
How capable is the country of turning plans and knowledge into functioning systems?
+0.3 over 10 years, from 54.2 in 2016 to 54.5 on 3 indicators seen in both years.
Trends use fewer indicators than the current score and use today's frame. A longer span reaches further back.
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 7.678% of GDP
- Year
- 2025. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (NV.IND.MANF.ZS)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 29.233% of manufactured exports
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (TX.VAL.TECH.MF.ZS)
- History
Logistics infrastructure quality
perception proxyretired, see notes- Raw value
- no dataindex 1-5
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- World Bank (LP.LPI.INFR.XQ)
- History
- no data
Note: Retired 2026-08-26. An LPI sub-index, so the same freight-forwarder survey as logistics performance and the same problem. Electricity connection speed stays as the observable infrastructure measure in this dimension. See D23.
direct capability measureobserved
- Raw value
- 87.826score 0-100
- Year
- 2019. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (IC.ELC.TIME.DFRN)
- History
downstream outcomeobserved
- Raw value
- 3.486index
- Year
- 2024. The rail runs from 1960 to 2026.
- Normalized
- Source
- World Bank (EF.EFM.UNIV.XD)
- History
Large project delivery
direct capability measureno dataset exists, 3 records- Raw value
- no data% overrun
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- none
- History
- no data
Note: The single best measure of execution capability and there is no comparable international dataset. Assembling one is a defensible Envisioning project. Building mixes industrial output with state delivery capacity, and this indicator carries the delivery side: the other six indicators cannot see a national programme that was delivered. Documented deliveries are recorded in data/evidence and never scored, see D20.
Firm scale-up rate
direct capability measureno dataset exists- Raw value
- no data% of firms
- Year
- no data
- Normalized
- no data
- Source
- OECD DynEmp
- History
- no data
Note: OECD business dynamics work covers members irregularly. Nothing comparable for India, Brazil or South Africa.
Conditions, not scored
What the country has to work with on this capability. The values are shown as the source published them and are not part of the score, the confidence or the trend. The rank counts the countries with a value, best first.
Output per workerWorld Bank (SL.GDP.PCAP.EM.KD), 2025
111,234 constant 2021 PPP $, rank 17 of 123. GDP per person employed, constant purchasing power parity.
A condition, not scored: output per worker is income per worker, the wealth the benchmark tests capability against, so it is published beside Building as context (D122).
Evidence for missing indicators
Each record describes a case the indicators above cannot see. It does not affect the score or confidence because one case is not comparable across countries. A gap can become an indicator when a comparable series covers at least two countries.
Sure Start children's centres, and their erosion
England built a national network of early-childhood centres reaching 3,632 sites by August 2009, then closed or hollowed out a large part of it after funding was cut, with the official count at 3,123 by October 2017 and independent estimates near 1,000 closures.
3,123 centres, children's centres open, official count, 2017-10. 3,632 centres, children's centres open at the peak, 2009-08. The Sutton Trust, Stop Start report summary, retrieved 2026-08-27.
How it worked: Central government funded local one-stop centres for under-fives, ring-fenced the money, and targeted the most deprived areas first; when the ring-fence was removed in 2010, local authorities under cuts converted, merged or closed centres faster than any national decision was ever taken.
Limits: A site count is the crudest measure of the service: many surviving centres kept the building and lost the staff, which is why the Sutton Trust's estimate of real closures is roughly double the official fall shown here. The count stops in 2017 and later parliamentary answers show further decline. The record shows the erosion of delivered infrastructure under budget cuts, not the effect on children; the IFS separately measured lasting health benefits from the programme at its peak, which is what makes the erosion a loss rather than housekeeping.
High Speed Two, and the cancellation of Phase 2
The Department for Transport and HS2 Ltd began building High Speed Two in 2020. The government cancelled everything beyond Birmingham in 2023. By May 2026 the London to Birmingham railway alone was estimated at £87.7 billion to £102.7 billion, more than double the 2020 Phase 1 estimate, with services from Old Oak Common expected between 2036 and 2039 against a 2012 plan to complete the full network by 2033.
100 % overrun (more than, excluding inflation), cost increase over the 2020 phase 1 estimate, low end of the may 2026 range, 2026-05. 2033 year, year dft expected the full london, manchester and leeds network to be complete at the 2012 approval, 2012. National Audit Office (UK), High Speed Two reset, HC 52, Session 2026-27, 29 June 2026, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Department for Transport approved a national high-speed line, set up an arm's-length company to build it, and committed to construction contracts in 2020 before designs and costs were stable. It then responded to the cost growth by cutting the northern phases instead of the scope of Phase 1.
Limits: No HS2 train has run. This is a record of a build in progress, not a delivered railway, and the erosion is to planned scope: the Manchester and Leeds legs were cancelled before they were built, so nothing in service was lost. The May 2026 estimate is in a mixed price base and the NAO says it carries a high level of uncertainty until a baseline is set in spring 2027. The over 100% figure compares a London to Birmingham estimate with the 2020 Phase 1 estimate, which excluded inflation and was itself a rebaseline after the 2019 Oakervee review, so the overrun against the 2012 approval is larger and is not stated as one number by the NAO. The 2033 completion year is for a network that no longer exists, so it is a schedule reference, not a like-for-like comparison. Both figures are read from PDFs, with text-extraction spacing artefacts cleaned in the quotes. Spend to March 2026 was £46.8 billion in nominal prices, including the cancelled Phase 2.
The Department for Transport and Transport for London built Crossrail through Crossrail Ltd from 2009. The NAO put its forecast cost at 28% above the 2010 budget of £14.8 billion and its opening at up to three and a half years past the original December 2018 date. The central section opened in 2022 and carried 257.4 million journeys between April 2025 and March 2026.
28 % overrun (nominal), nominal cost increase to build the railway over the 2010 budget of £14.8 billion, 2021-05. 257,400,000 journeys, passenger journeys on the elizabeth line, 2025-04 to 2026-03. National Audit Office (UK), Crossrail: a progress update, HC 299, Session 2021-22, 9 July 2021, retrieved 2026-10-01.
How it worked: The Department for Transport and Transport for London set up a dedicated delivery company, Crossrail Ltd, with private delivery partners, and when it missed its 2018 opening they replaced its leadership, added £825 million and more, and handed the finished asset to Transport for London to operate.
Limits: The 28% is the NAO's May 2021 forecast, made before the line opened; this record has not verified the final outturn cost from an audit source, and the NAO itself notes that later funding packages kept moving. The schedule figure is also a 2021 forecast of 'at least 3 years' late; the opening in 2022 is confirmed only by the regulator's statement that the central section opened that year. The cost is nominal, so part of the 28% is inflation over a decade. Crossrail is a London line co-sponsored and part funded by Transport for London and the Greater London Authority, including a business rate supplement, so it is not purely a national delivery, and its success in carrying passengers says nothing about the governance failures the NAO documented in 2018 to 2019. The journey count is a regulator's estimate from ticketing data.