44 deliveries, 19 countries

What countries built

Each record describes something a country built that the indicators miss. The source provides the number; the mechanism is our interpretation.

Scores describe outcomes. These records describe how a country acted, what it needed and what happened. 44 of 44 records include a mechanism. They do not affect scores.

Narrow the list

SearchCountryDimensionStatusWith a mechanism2 of 44

Experimentation

1 delivery linked to Regulatory sandbox activity.

United Kingdomsince 2016still operatingbears on Regulatory sandbox activity

The FCA regulatory sandbox

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.

The move, and what it needed

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.

Preconditions

A single conduct regulator with statutory room to waive its own rules
A fintech sector dense enough to fill cohorts
Political cover for a regulator explicitly helping firms it will later police

Where it travelled: The sandbox is Britain's most copied regulatory export, and several dozen jurisdictions now run one. Most copies keep the name and drop the supervisory intensity that makes it work.

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.

Building

1 delivery linked to Large project delivery.

United Kingdomsince 1998operating below its peakbears on Large project delivery

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.

The move, and what it needed

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.

Preconditions

Local authorities able to deliver a nationally specified service
A ring-fenced grant, whose removal was also what let the network erode
Cross-departmental agreement that early childhood was infrastructure

Where it travelled: The 2025 Best Start family hubs programme is the same state rebuilding a version of what it closed, fifteen years later, which is the strongest available evidence that the erosion was a loss.

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.