Local government reform: what role for universal basic infrastructure?

England is undergoing a major re-organisation of local government. Universal basic infrastructure provides the framework needed to ensure that this is not just an administrative reshuffle, but a rare moment to re-imagine the relationship between the state, citizens and the places they call home.

Alongside the recent announcements on further devolution made by the Burnham government, England is navigating a quiet but profound shift in its domestic geography. The English Devolution White Paper, published in December 2024, launched a programme of local government re-organisation designed to simplify a fragmented landscape, with the remaining two-tier authorities in England – where responsibilities are split between county and district councils – being replaced by unitary authorities (or ‘unitaries’).

Rather than treating re-organisation as an administrative reshuffle, this is a rare moment to re-imagine the relationship between the state, citizens and the places they call home. To make this reform meaningful, the new authorities should look beyond the mechanics of boundaries and mergers, and identify a new set of organising principles. Among these should be the idea of a universal basic infrastructure (UBI).

The thinking behind UBI is that policy-makers need to consider the collective provision of essential infrastructure. The framework adopts an expansive view, incorporating physical assets like transport and broadband, social infrastructure such as GP surgeries and schools, and private ‘anchor assets’ like pharmacies and post offices.

UBI seeks to eliminate postcode lotteries and regional inequalities, and provide the necessary foundations for local productivity and long-term national economic prosperity. This involves establishing a ‘minimum offer’ – a per person baseline below which services and facilities cannot fall.

This place-first approach is fundamentally redistributive, as public assets provide the greatest value to those who own the fewest private resources. Crucially, UBI is also about making the most of existing assets before investing in new ones – a principle well suited to an era of constrained public finances. It also recognises that individual endeavours are more likely to succeed when they can build on solid foundations.

How could UBI work in practice?

There are five ways in which adopting a UBI approach could enable local government to think more expansively about the reform programme.

Establishing a ‘minimum offer’

At the core of UBI is the idea that every resident, regardless of where they live, should be guaranteed a ‘minimum offer’ of essential infrastructure. This extends beyond assets owned by the public sector to include physical infrastructure, social and cultural infrastructure, and service providers like hairdressers, pharmacists and pubs. The unit of analysis is place rather than organisation.

All the new authorities will undertake a shadow phase before they go live. This moment is ideal for mapping existing infrastructure and defining the minimum offer. This definition phase should happen at a local level. A rural area with an ageing population will need a different mix of infrastructure from a younger, more ethnically diverse urban setting; equally, different forms of infrastructure may meet the same need in different contexts.

Crucially, this mapping both uses and deepens local knowledge of existing assets and encourages organisations to work together. Mapping current provision against a minimum offer will enable the new unitaries to identify infrastructure deserts and prioritise investment decisions.

A framework for service integration

One of the primary arguments for unitary re-organisation is the ability to join up services that were previously fragmented across different tiers of local government. UBI provides the connective tissue for this integration.

Rather than viewing infrastructure through the lens of organisational or departmental responsibility, UBI encourages policy-makers to trace connections across previously siloed categories. What is the relationship between transport and access to healthcare? How can a ‘provision presumption’ ensure that new housing is accompanied from the outset by an agreed level of schools and GP practices?

This builds on the one public estate model and provides essential groundwork for the Burnham government’s approach to devolution as set out in the recent cabinet statement on ‘rewiring the state’.

Where these reforms focus on how decisions are made, UBI defines what must be provided to guarantee a minimum standard. The approaches are complementary, not competing.

Rebuilding trust through community assets

There is a trust deficit across local governments in the UK. In 2025, only three-in-ten of respondents to the annual Ipsos veracity index agreed that they trusted local councillors – the lowest figure since they were added to the index in 2006. Changes to local government offer a vital opportunity to address this deficit, and UBI again provides an approach.

Figure 1: Public trust in professions to tell the truth, 2025

Infrastructure shapes how people think about where they live. Their daily experiences are most people’s immediate contact with the state. This is why potholes, bin collections and run-down high streets matter. While many in the media have portrayed the results of the local elections I May 2026 as a comment on national politics, they are also a reflection of the felt experience of voters in the places that voted.

The UBI framework’s ‘preservation presumption’ argues for a legal or policy-based requirement that existing local infrastructure must be maintained. If a local authority wants to close or reduce a service, they must first demonstrate that doing so would not drop the area below the defined minimum standard. This flips the burden of proof and is a powerful tool against the hollowing out of ‘left-behind’ places.

This sits well alongside existing and emerging legislation. Since 2012, community groups have been able to nominate buildings as assets of community value (ACV). The English Devolution and Community Empowerment Bill’s community right to buy builds on this, giving community groups first option on any ACV that comes to market, with a 12-month moratorium to raise the necessary funds.

As part of the asset mapping required to establish a UBI baseline, emerging authorities can work directly with communities to identify those buildings and services that contribute to people’s connections with the identity of where they live. Committing to protect them from decline is a visible, early act of good faith with residents that can help to build trust in these emerging institutions.

Shifting the funding narrative

Local government funding has fallen sharply over the past 15 years. According to research by the Institute for Government, spending power per person in 2025/26 was 18.3% less than it was at the start of the previous decade.These funding reductions have not been felt evenly. Between 2010/11 and 2018/19, the most deprived fifth of councils saw a 33.3% cut in spending power, while the least deprived saw a reduction of ‘just’ 15.2%.

Adopting UBI as an organising principle changes how local authorities talk to central government. Rather than simply asking for more grant funding to ‘keep the lights on’, the UBI framework can be used to make a robust, evidence-based case for investment, and one that can connect multiple funding streams. By mapping the gap between current provision and the defined minimum standard, the new unitaries can shift the conversation from efficiency to entitlement, and from institutional survival to genuine productivity.

This is already finding policy traction. The 2025 Budget included five place-based budget pilots with mayoral strategic authorities, and the recent Green Book review introduced place-based business cases as a new tool for capital investment decisions. UBI provides the analytical backbone for both by setting out a clear, measurable account of what each place currently has, and what it needs.

Securing the means of delivery

If UBI provides the means to articulate the ‘what’, the Levelling Up and Regeneration Act 2023 (LURA) provides the legislative ‘how’. Traditionally, local government has struggled to secure the infrastructure promised by developers or has found the cost of land for public services prohibitively high. LURA introduces three specific mechanisms that can turn UBI from a mapping exercise into a delivery reality.

The new infrastructure levy included in the act represents a shift towards a non-negotiable, locally determined charge. By setting rates through the lens of a minimum offer, the new unitaries can ensure that the uplift in land value generated by development is directly recycled into the physical and social infrastructure that the community requires. This creates a predictable funding stream to tackle any infrastructure deserts identified during the shadow authority phase.

LURA’s reforms to compulsory purchase orders allow for the removal of ‘hope value’ – the value of the land if it had been sold on the open market – when authorities acquire sites for affordable housing, education or health facilities. For a new council looking to build a new GP surgery or a community hub, this significantly lowers the cost of entry, making it financially viable to reclaim land for the public good.

Finally, the introduction of high street rental auctions gives councils the power to tackle the decline of private anchor assets. Authorities can now compel landlords of long-term vacant shops to put them up for lease, bringing life back to lifeless high streets. Within a UBI framework, this power allows councils to intervene and ensure that essential community services have a physical presence in the heart of every neighbourhood.

By pro-actively using these powers, the new unitaries can demonstrate that re-organisation is not just an administrative merger, but an active effort to rebuild the fabric of local life.

What next for local governance?

Local government re-organisation alone cannot deliver meaningful place-based reform. The administrative machinery needs to be underpinned by strong and coherent organising principles.

Universal basic infrastructure offers the new unitary authorities a clear framework: to map what’s already there, to protect what matters, to join up across services and to use evidence to make a stronger case to central government, all of which will contribute to Burnham’s vision of ‘good growth in every postcode’. Those councils that make the most of this opportunity will be those that go live already knowing what their places need and already committed to providing it.