Guidance

Place Based Budgets: programme

Published 13 July 2026

Applies to England

1. Introduction

Public services face deep structural pressures. Demand is rising, responsibilities are split across organisations, and funding flows through separate systems with different rules, incentives and accountabilities, even when serving the same people. The result can be fragmented support, late intervention and duplication that makes it harder to deliver the joined-up services that people need.

Place Based Budgets are a deliberate response to this, building on over 2 decades of thinking and practice around place-based reform, including Total Place and similar initiatives. Rather than adding new funding or redesigning services from the centre, 5 pilots will explore how giving local systems greater flexibility to pool budgets, align governance and redesign services around a defined cohort or challenge can improve outcomes. The focus is on testing the hypothesis that collaboration, culture and services improve when incentives and accountability are better aligned.

The Place Based Budgets programme is part of the ‘Foundations’ work of the cross-government Test, Learn and Grow programme, which brings central and local government together to find practical solutions to barriers in delivering prevention-focused, people-centred public services. Here, it is based on the knowledge that fragmented funding and accountability stops those delivering services from collaborating to build services around people’s needs instead of the departmental structures that fund them. For the 5 pilots, this means access to cross-government support to identify and unblock funding rules, accountability arrangements, and other constraints that would otherwise limit what is possible locally.

The Place Based Budgets programme is also part of the government’s plan to reform public services. At Spending Review 2025, the government outlined 3 key principles reforms will adopt:

• integration – integrate services, so that they are organised around people’s lives
• prevention – improve long-term outcomes for people through a focus on prevention, relying less on expensive crisis management
• devolution – devolve power to local areas that understand the needs of their communities best, with services that are designed with and for people

Five Place Based Budgets pilots are being developed with local partners and local people in 5 Mayoral Strategic Authority (MSA) areas. Each is focussed on a locally agreed cohort or challenge:

• special educational needs and disabilities (SEND) across Liverpool City Region
• young people at risk of offending in Gateshead and South Tyneside.
• adolescent mental health across Dudley, Sandwell, Walsall and Wolverhampton.
• adults facing multiple disadvantage in Doncaster.
• preventing youth unemployment across West Yorkshire

As democratically elected bodies with the geographic footprint to coordinate across organisational boundaries, MSAs have a central leadership role in bringing together local authorities, partners and communities around shared priorities. This reflects the role set out for Strategic Authorities in the English Devolution White Paper, which positions MSAs as leaders on public service reform, working in partnership with local authorities to drive prevention-focused, people-centred services. For Place Based Budgets, this means providing visible place-level leadership for reform, brokering agreement across organisations, stewarding collaboration through complexity and maintaining a focus on prevention, integration and better outcomes for residents.

The Ministry of Housing Communities and Local Government (MHCLG) and the Cabinet Office are working directly with each pilot area and relevant government departments to support proposal development, navigate cross-government constraints, and enable delivery.

The pilots will also share learning with other place-based initiatives across government to grow the movement around this work, such as Greater Manchester’s Prevention Demonstrator, a similar initiative exploring how public services can be reorganised around prevention at neighbourhood level. While distinct in design and scope, both programmes are working through similar questions about pooling, governance and service redesign.

Central government will facilitate opportunities for mutual learning, enabling insights, challenges and emerging practice to be shared between the programmes and across participating areas. This will include connecting learning from other initiatives such as Changing Futures, Pride in Place and Test, Learn and Grow accelerators where common challenges and policy insights are emerging.

This document sets out the context and intended approach for the Place Based Budgets programme. The document is intended to support pilot areas during the co-design phase, providing a common framework for developing pilots while allowing flexibility for local areas to shape their approach in ways that reflect their context.

2. Programme aims and pilot objectives

The programme aims to test how pooling budgets, aligning governance, and redesigning services around a defined cohort or challenge can be made to work in practice, and whether doing so leads to better outcomes over time. The initial focus is on proof of concept: testing whether this model can operate credibly and whether it creates the conditions for:

• service improvement – improved access, reduced duplication, more joined-up service journeys, and early signs of more upstream working
• stronger collaboration – partners aligning activity around shared cohorts, with joint planning and decision-making that alters delivery in practice
• cultural change – movement away from siloed control towards joint problem-solving and shared responsibility across central and local actors

Over the longer term, the programme is designed to generate evidence on whether resources are being used more effectively: whether the approach achieves better outcomes, and whether shifting investment towards earlier intervention represents better use of public money than reactive crisis spending. Evidence generated at key proof points will underpin decisions about continuation and scale.

Although the pilots are working with a set of 5 MSAs and their constituent local authorities, the learning generated is intended to support the wider local government family, including areas outside mayoral structures and places at different stages of partnership maturity.

Each pilot will be expected to deliver the following objectives:

• establish a dedicated project team and local governance arrangements to lead the pilot and coordinate partners across the system
• map the current system of services, funding and decision-making affecting that cohort, identifying where there is duplication, fragmentation, delayed intervention or other barriers to more coordinated support
• agree a clear set of outcomes to improve through place-based working
• work with service users and partners to redesign services so that support is more integrated, person-centred and organised around shared outcomes
• establish pooled budgets, with aligned governance and accountability to support this
• actively contribute to shared learning across the pilot programme, the wider sector, and central government, being open about what is not working as well as what is
• generate place-level evaluation evidence, including developing a local theory of change, capturing implementation and governance learning, and contributing agreed data to the shared evaluation framework

3. Principles

These principles have been developed to guide the design, delivery and evaluation of the pilots. They are based on lessons from previous, similar initiatives, and the government’s approach to public service reform.

Place Based Budgets should be delivered through partnership working centrally and locally

Place Based Pilots should involve MSAs working in partnership with their constituent local authorities, service providers, the voluntary and community sector, and local service users. Effective delivery will depend on strong and sustained commitment to partnership working across organisations.

The MSA should act as a leader and convenor, bringing together partners to agree shared priorities for the defined cohort and to support more coordinated decision-making about how resources are used. This includes creating space for open discussion of trade-offs, constraints, and differing organisational incentives. This leadership role is consistent with the function set out for Strategic Authorities in the English Devolution White Paper, which positions them to coordinate across organisational boundaries and drive place-based reform in partnership with local partners.

Central government should also work in partnership with pilot areas, and one another, making decisions that support the aims of the programme over preserving a status quo that is not meeting the needs of local people.

User voices should significantly shape the redesign, delivery and evaluation of the pilots

Pilots should focus on organising funding, governance, and service delivery around a clearly defined cohort or challenge. The aim is to reduce fragmentation by aligning existing arrangements more closely around the needs and experiences of service users.

This requires a practical understanding of how people currently interact with services, including where there are overlaps, gaps, or repeated assessments. Pilots should use this insight to identify where changes to pathways, roles, or coordination mechanisms could improve how support is delivered.

Redesign does not necessarily mean creating new services. It may involve improving how existing services work together, clarifying responsibilities, and reducing duplication.

Pilots should capture learning and share it openly and widely

Pilots should contribute to the shared learning process. They should continuously capture learning including around the design, delivery, barriers encountered and what has worked. They should share relevant learning with other pilots, central government and wider stakeholders as much as possible. Central government will support shared learning including by:

• encouraging pilots to identify lessons that are helpful for other places
• arranging regular engagement between local ‘Pilot Leads’ and central government ‘Pilot Champions’
• facilitating learning and reflection sessions to share learning with and between pilots – exploring common challenges and emerging practice.
• developing a newsletter to promote Place Based Budgets and share learning with wider stakeholders
• developing communication channels and other mechanisms as relevant

Pilots should help their own partners, stakeholders and communities understand the purpose of the pilots and the changes being explored. Learning from the pilots will also be considered alongside insights emerging from other place-based initiatives, including Test, Learn and Grow accelerators, helping strengthen feedback loops across related programmes.

Participation in wider external networks is welcome but not a formal requirement of the programme.

This is alongside formal evaluation, which is outlined in chapter 8.

Place Based Budgets should explore opportunities for innovation and experimentation

The pilots are designed to test new ways of organising services and funding across organisational boundaries. This will require partners to challenge established ways of working and operate with a degree of uncertainty. The programme will support partners to test approaches, learn from experience, and refine delivery as the pilots develop.

4. Programme timings

The pilot programme is expected to run until March 2029. The sequencing below outlines how pilots are expected to move from design to delivery to evaluation, with clear milestones and decision points.

Stage 1 – Selection (January to March 2026)

Central government and pilot areas MSAs have agreed the proposals to be developed as a Place Based Budgets pilot. Each proposal outlined:

• the target cohort or challenge to be addressed
• the partners expected to be involved
• the potential services and funding in scope of the Place Based Budget

Stage 2 – Co-design

This stage will involve co-design and initial implementation of the Place Based Budgets. While pilots may develop at different speeds, a high-level set of backstops have been proposed to offer a suggested structure to the work and ensure pilots are delivering by April 2027.

Areas that can make faster progress, whether through existing partnerships, governance maturity, or locally agreed integration, are encouraged to do so and to share their learning with the wider programme. Areas can also propose alternative approaches to their pilot, providing it doesn’t jeopardise progression to Stage 3.

By the end of April 2026

• target cohort or challenge agreed, accompanied by draft outcome measures
• Pilot Leads, Pilot Teams and any additional working level groups have been appointed
• plans for co-design have been developed and agreed
• local governance has been set up to perform co-design
• evaluation tools and metrics agreed in principle

By the end of June 2026

• service users and service actors have been engaged
• community visits, customer journey mapping performed
• existing services and spending have been mapped
• evidence of duplication, fragmentation and late intervention collected
• problems, blockers which prevent place-based approaches identified

By the end of March 2027

• user-centred service re-design completed
• proposals for accountability, budget pooling, data sharing etc have been developed
• central government has unblocked identified obstacles to place-based approaches
• place-based budget is being implemented
• learning is being captured through logs, barrier registers and pilot interviews

Stage 3 – Continued implementation

By the end of March 2027 pilots should be implementing a Place Based Budget in some shape or form. If a pilot area has been unable to make changes to working arrangements, service designs, funding and accountability arrangements by this point, there will not be enough time for new ways of working to embed and demonstrate impact.

For the remaining years of the programme, pilots will be expected to continue implementing and iterating their Placed Based Budgets. This includes reviewing and refining joint working approaches, service design and funding arrangements. Areas will continue to capture and share learning. Central government will continue to address the blockers and obstacles which cannot be solved locally.

5. Resource mapping and pooling

A key part of the pilot design process is developing a shared understanding of how resources are currently organised around the cohort or challenge, and where there may be opportunities to pool funding to support more coherent delivery.

Mapping current resources

Pilots should map the funding and resources currently used to deliver services for the defined cohort. This includes identifying:

• which organisations are involved
• the main funding streams supporting activity and the amount of money spent
• how services are currently commissioned or delivered
• where there may be duplication, gaps, or fragmentation

The purpose of this exercise is to build a practical understanding of how the system currently operates. It is not intended to be an exhaustive financial audit, but a structured way of identifying where opportunities for more place-based approaches exist.

Budget pooling and alignment

Following mapping, pilots should develop proposals for how funding arrangements can be adapted to make them more place-based, with budget pooling as the primary ambition. Pilots should work towards a real pool of resources, governed collectively and directed towards shared outcomes. Where full pooling is not immediately feasible, budget alignment remains an approach as pilots develop their arrangements. Both approaches are described below.

Budget pooling involves partners combining resources into a defined arrangement, with clear governance and oversight, to deliver agreed activities or outcomes on behalf of the partnership. It operates as a single budget, managed by a single host with a formal partnership or joint funding agreement that sets out aims, accountabilities and responsibilities.

Budget alignment involves organisations redirecting or coordinating their existing mainstream activity to support shared priorities for the cohort. Each partner in the partnership retains accountability and responsibility for their funds.

The level at which budget pooling can take place, MSA or local authority, should be determined locally to reflect local circumstances considering the goal of the pilot and the administrative convenience and efficiency.  

Governance, accountability and statutory duties

Each pilot is responsible for determining appropriate governance, financial management, and accountability arrangements for any pooled or aligned funding.

Pooling of funds does not remove or override an organisation’s statutory responsibilities. Partners will remain accountable for their duties, but may agree revised reporting, oversight or assurance arrangements to reflect collective decision-making. Pooling budgets can raise new issues; their key aspects should be reflected in a formal partnership or funding agreement between participating organisations.

The central government Place Based Budgets team will provide support as pilots develop their arrangements, including engagement with relevant government departments where flexibility in national rules or approvals is required.

6. Central support and funding

Pilot Champions

The central government Place Based Budgets team will work alongside pilots throughout the programme, with each pilot having a central government Champion as their primary point of contact.

A core part of the Champion’s role is to advocate for pilots across government and work to address the structural blockers highlighted by pilot areas that prevent or disincentivise place-based approaches.

In practice, this could mean seeking flexibilities on funding rules to enable budget pooling or working with specific departments to adjust accountability arrangements so that local partners can reduce duplicative activity and focus on shared outcomes.

Capacity funding

MSAs will receive capacity funding from central government to support the development of their proposals. The goals of this funding are to:

• provide essential resources for the co-design phase
• build capacity across staffing, expertise, administration, and data systems to support delivery, planning, analysis, research and evaluation
• enable local governance arrangements to be established and support engagement with stakeholder organisations and local communities
• allow appropriate backfilling for preparatory work undertaken earlier in 2025/26, where that work directly supported pilot development

Further funding for each pilot will be considered on an annual basis from April 2026 to March 2028, subject to the nature of expenditure and spend forecasts provided.

If there is any uncertainty about eligibility of planned expenditure, pilots should contact their designated central government Champion before incurring costs. This funding should be treated as a distinct programme and all expenditure should have an adequate audit trail. The grant should be used in accordance with the requirements set out in the memorandum of understanding. The memorandum of understanding aims to place a proportionate burden on both parties, allow necessary flexibility, support trusting working relationships and enable effective delivery.

7. Governance

Effective governance is central to the design, delivery, and evaluation of the pilots. An integrated, tiered governance structure has been established to clearly define decision-making authority, accountability, and escalation routes across local delivery, programme oversight, and strategic leadership. This ensures that delivery responsibility is appropriately delegated within agreed tolerances, whilst overall accountability for programme outcomes, funding, and delivery confidence is retained by the Cabinet Office–led Programme Steering Group.

Clear governance boundaries, defined roles, and structured assurance loops enable effective performance management, proactive risk management, and timely decision-making across the programme lifecycle.

Project Board (Local Delivery Tier)

There is an expectation that each pilot has their own governance in place, and are accountable for delivery within agreed scope, time, cost, and quality tolerances. These structures are responsible for translating strategic intent into operational delivery and ensuring effective day-to-day control of each pilot.

These governance structures provide first-line governance and control, ensuring delivery discipline while enabling escalation where local resolution is not possible.

Programme Delivery Board (Programme Oversight and Integration Tier)

The Programme Delivery Board provides programme-level oversight, integration, and performance management across all pilots. It operates within delegated authority from the Steering Group and ensures that delivery across the programme is coherent, coordinated, and aligned to strategic outcomes.

Chaired by the central Place Based Budgets leads and attended by pilot leads, cross-government representatives, and local government representatives.

This board provides second-line oversight, ensuring effective coordination and performance management, while maintaining clear escalation pathways to the strategic tier.

Steering Group (Strategic Leadership and Accountability Tier)

The Steering Group provides strategic leadership and retains ultimate accountability for the programme. It operates as the senior decision-making body, setting direction, maintaining delivery confidence, and ensuring alignment with cross-government priorities.

Membership includes senior representatives from the Cabinet Office and MHCLG and chaired by Directors, reflecting joint ownership of delivery while maintaining clear accountability at the centre.

This group acts as the ultimate accountability and decision-making authority, ensuring that governance remains outcome-focused, risks are actively managed, and the programme delivers its intended benefits.

8. Evaluation

The pilots are intended to generate practical learning about how place-based approaches to funding and delivery operate in practice, and whether doing so leads to better outcomes over time. The evaluation will support delivery as it develops while building a credible evidence base to inform future decisions about whether and how the model could be scaled.

Evaluation approach

The evaluation will operate through a shared delivery model. Pilot areas will generate the majority of place-level evidence by:

• developing a local theory of change
• performing baseline before-and-after mapping
• capturing implementation and governance learning
• providing agreed data where feasible

MHCLG and the Cabinet Office will:

• provide shared learning questions
• provide light tools and templates
• coordinate timing
• support data and indicator feasibility work
• produce cross-pilot synthesis

This approach aims to balance local ownership with a consistent evidence base across the programme. Differences in pace, data readiness, delivery maturity and evaluative capability are expected and will help identify the conditions needed to implement the model more widely.

The evaluation will involve 2 phases.

Phase 1: co-design and proof-of-concept

The immediate focus is to test whether the Place Based Budgets model can operate credibly in practice. Evidence will concentrate on:

• how pooling arrangements are established and governed
• how partners plan, decide, design services and deliver differently
• barriers encountered and how they are resolved
• early signals consistent with local theories of change
• direction of travel on public value

This phase is not expected to demonstrate definitive outcome attribution or mature value evidence. The primary output will be process evidence and a credible proof-of-concept on feasibility and operability.

Phase 2: delivery and longer-term learning

As pilots move into delivery, the evaluation will shift towards assessing impact, outcomes and the durability of new ways of working. This will include examining whether the model is associated with:

• reduced duplication and clearer service pathways
• more joined-up delivery across organisational boundaries
• improved access and timeliness for service users
• a sustained shift towards shared responsibility

Evaluation will consider how outcomes vary across places, what evidence exists that arrangements contributed to the observed change, and what further evidence would be needed to strengthen those claims. The choice of specific methods and metrics will be confirmed during co-design, informed by data availability and feasibility.

Core evaluation questions

Across the programme, a shared set of evaluation questions will guide both pilot-level learning and cross-programme synthesis. Pilot areas will be expected to evidence against these questions through their local activity. Questions will include:

Process, design and operability

• how were approaches designed and implemented in local settings?
• what enabled or inhibited their use in practice?
• to what extent were pilots able to test, adapt, and refine their approach over time?

System change

• what are the core components, relationships and mechanics that shape how partners currently plan, fund, and deliver services?
• what structural and relational changes emerged in how partners plan, decide, and deliver?
• did redesign result in clearer pathways, reduced duplication or more coordinated decision-making?

Public value and trajectory

• to what extent have the activities described in the local and programme Theories of Change been implemented as intended?
• what evidence is there that inputs and activities are likely to lead to intended outcomes?

Scalability and sustainability

• under what conditions can pooling, joint governance and redesign be replicated?
• what are the barriers to sustainability of the model?

Impact

• what outcomes are observed across pilots over time?
• how do these vary by place and cohort?
• what evidence indicates that this model contributed to these outcomes?
• how strong is that evidence?

These shared questions provide a consistent framework across pilots while allowing each area to tailor its local theory of change and indicators to its context.

Pilot contribution to evaluation

Each area will be asked to provide a small, repeatable set of learning inputs that support both pilot-level learning and programme-level synthesis:

• a local theory of change
• a baseline system and cohort description
• participation in structured reflective tools (such as learning logs, pulse surveys and governance reflections)
• agreement of a small set of indicators, subject to data feasibility

Shared ‘anchor’ metrics will be provided to enable a common structure for cross-pilot learning (for example, in-scope domains are around access and timeliness, coordination, crisis demand, and budget signals) while allowing each pilot to define contextually relevant measures. Beyond this core, pilots may undertake deeper evaluation activity where appetite and capability exist.

The central Place Based Budgets team will coordinate these inputs, provide prompts and templates, and minimise reporting burden where possible.

Co-design refinement

Some elements of evaluation will be confirmed with pilots during co-design, including:

• final indicator sets and data availability
• the level of local evaluation activity that is feasible
• whether additional analytical or external support is required
• the timing and scope of future impact work
• the feasibility of more advanced quantitative impact methods (for example, quasi-experimental approaches), including whether external analytical support is required

For all further queries or comments please contact your Place Based Budgets champion and/or PlaceBasedBudgets@communities.gov.uk.