The CBI and Browne Jacobson used UKREiiF 2026 in Leeds to publish a landmark joint report calling for a fundamental reform of the legal and commercial framework governing public-private partnerships in the UK. 

The launch of the report, Pipeline to progress: Making UK infrastructure investable, was accompanied by a cross-sector panel on 19 May that brought together voices from business, finance and mayoral combined authorities. 

PPPs were not confined to our session alone. Across the conference, from the morning's opening plenary to dedicated sector discussions, the theme of partnership between public and private capital was a common thread running through conversations.  

Plans alone don't pour concrete

The UK Government has bold ambitions to deliver 1.5 million new homes and 150 nationally significant infrastructure projects within this parliament, with plans to allocate £725bn over the next decade in the 10-year infrastructure strategy. Yet constrained fiscal headroom means it is unlikely that public funds alone will achieve this. 

Speaking at UKREiiF, CBI Chief Executive Rain Newton-Smith urged political and business leaders to move past outdated debates about PFI and establish a stable, credible model for private investment in public projects, arguing that while government has made important progress on planning reform and with its new infrastructure strategy, "plans alone don't pour concrete".

Developed in partnership with the CBI's Infrastructure Working Group – comprising more than 60 businesses operating across the UK – Pipeline to progress draws on evidence gathered from the investment, construction, advisory and operator communities, alongside public sector leaders. 

It sets out a comprehensive blueprint for a modern PPP programme built around six pillars: 

1. A standardised national legal architecture.
2. Proportionate risk allocation.
3. Auditable social value.
4. Flexible financial structures.
5. Strengthened governance and accountability.
6. A clear delivery pipeline through mayoral and combined authorities. 

It contains more than 20 specific recommendations directed at the Cabinet Office, HM Treasury, NISTA and contracting authorities, with defined timeframes for implementation of between three months and two years.

As Craig Elder, partner at Browne Jacobson and chair of the panel, put it:

Capital is available – confidence is the missing piece

Beckie Hart, Regional Director for Yorkshire and the Humber at the CBI, opened the panel by setting the scene: infrastructure is where ambition meets reality (schools, hospitals, transport systems and the places we live and work) and there is considerable capital available that simply needs a credible route to deployment through investors and metro mayors alike. 

Chris Sood-Nicholls, Managing Director for Regional Development at Lloyds Banking Group, explained how that route is beginning to take shape, with public infrastructure now reclassified as investment rather than expenditure. 

Examples of how it’s already adopting a public-private mentality is in its work with public finance institutions (known as “puffins” in industry) such as the National Wealth Fund (NWF) for retrofitting social housing stock. Last week, the bank announced a £35m increase to housing association Amplius’ revolving credit facility to help guarantee a £30m green retrofit loan from the NWF, supporting investment in homes across the provider’s portfolio of 40,000 properties. 

The key condition for such commitments, Chris said, is that projects must be investment-ready: planning in place, certainty of cashflow, and an “economically obvious proposition” that can fund itself over time following front-end financial support.

In designing the central PPP delivery body proposed in Pipeline to progress, the CBI and Browne Jacobson draw directly on Ireland's National Development Finance Agency as a blueprint – an institution that combines commercial capability, template governance and programme-level oversight.

This would give investors confidence, reduce bid costs and prevent contractual drift, and would be responsible for enforcing transparency requirements that sit at the heart of learnings from PFI. 

The role of mayoral combined authorities

On devolution, the report calls for a fundamental shift in the relationship between central government and combined authorities, with metro mayors given autonomy over what is delivered, where and in what sequence, within multi-year settlements. 

Amy Harhoff, Chief Executive of the East Midlands Combined County Authority, stressed that a credible and evolving pipeline is mission-critical, something regions like hers were showcasing at UKREiiF via specific projects providing investment opportunities.

A gap she identified is a central capability for co-ordinating capital into the market, adding: “A mayoral combined authority can convene to an extent but there’s also a role here for central government.”

Given that combined authorities are competing in the same slim markets, she suggested a centralised body could also to support by pooling commercial capabilities that sit across devolved administrations for national use.. 

Amy cited East Midlands Freeport – a formal partnership of local authorities and the private sector across Nottinghamshire, Derbyshire and Leicestershire, supported by a centralised team, and the East Midlands Mayoral Authority as the accountable body. The partnership is focused on unlocking key investments on the Trent Arc Growth area through incentivised inward investment and collaboration.

Community health: A test case for modern PPPs

The neighbourhood health centre programme provided the panel's most concrete use case: 250 centres by 2035, of which around 150 are new builds, with an average value of about £25m per centre. 

This scheme is a central plank of the government’s 10-Year Health Plan to shift care from hospitals to communities, while for investors the combined estimated value of £3.75bn provides intriguing opportunities. 

Phil Holland, Chief Investment Officer at Prime plc, highlighted different forms of PPP effectively already operating in the NHS with specialist investors and Local Improvement Finance Trust (LIFT) companies funding primary and secondary care assets on different basis.  These models have funded the design, build and maintenance of primary and community health infrastructure in the UK.

Phil said that the formation of the partnership is key and pointed to joint ventures Prime has with the NHS to deliver integrated health facilities in primary and secondary care that are funded by private capital using the most appropriate commercial structure.

“The partnership element has been important in LIFT,” said Phil. “If you get this right, the top-down planning for estates will match the vision in each area and this is where genuine efficiencies are achieved.”

Chris, of Lloyds, agreed, emphasising that replicability should not be underestimated: where something works, the lessons should be drawn out and applied.

On social value, which the Procurement Act 2023 requires contracting authorities to treat as 10% of award criteria, but which the Pipeline to progress report goes further in addressing, Phil was clear that genuine social value is tangible.

Prime provides key worker accommodation for NHS staff, and keeping local people in jobs helps to generate a real sense of place. 

Amy expressed some discomfort with social value as a purely contractual term, preferring to think about how to leverage the East Midlands pound and what a £10–15bn economic contribution, for example, genuinely means for communities on the ground.

PPPs in the wider UKREiiF conversation

Our panel was not the only place where PPPs featured prominently during the conference. In the morning's high-profile 'Build baby build' session, the CBI’s Rain Newton-Smith highlighted the transformative track record of PPPs in the UK's clean energy sector, generating 39GW through contracts for difference since 2014. 

She drew on the joint work with Browne Jacobson to make the case for doing considerably more. Since the UK placed a moratorium on using PFI and PF2 models for public sector infrastructure projects in 2018, Rain noted that more than 1,000 PPP projects have been delivered globally.

“We need to think about how the UK can feel more confident to create financing models that make these schemes viable with associated revenue streams, and working very closely with local partners to make that happen,” she added.

West Midlands Mayor Richard Parker spoke about the critical importance of collaborating with the market to de-risk projects, particularly on brownfield land where viability is more challenging.

He pointed to how the £3.8bn West Midlands Future Fund will aim to unlock major development sites by working in partnership with private investors. 

In another session exploring healthcare property opportunities, Kevin Hawkins, Operations Director and Head of Social Infrastructure at Kajima Partnerships, reflected on how PPPs have evolved over 25 years through various iterations – MIM, NPD and PF2. Risk transfer and cost certainty have remained the constant principles, but elements such as transparency have become more prominent.  

Drawing a direct contrast with HS2's well-publicised cost overruns, Kevin said: “PPP delivers cost certainty at outset and risk transfer in terms of construction and whole life costs.”

He noted that 160 hospitals have been delivered through PPP frameworks that rarely attract headlines. Facilities remain in good condition after 25 years and can then be taken forward by the public sector is a genuine achievement, he said. 

A moment of cautious optimism

From listening to conversations on PPP models at UKREiiF, it’s clear the recommendations in Pipeline to progress are not aspirational wishlists but highly practical, deliverable steps that government can and should take now. 

As Rain Newton-Smith notes, the ambition set out by government is clear and welcome, but “the challenge now is delivery: ensuring that plans translate into projects that can be built, operated and maintained at scale and at pace”.

The binding issue is not financing, the constraint is the alignment between priceable, patient capital with delivery risk and pipeline certainty. If the UK is to revive the use of PPP frameworks in financing infrastructure, it  should offer credible, investable propositions backed by consistent pipelines, clear risk allocation and professional stewardship over the life of assets. 

Pipeline to progress provides the blueprint

The task now is delivery. Browne Jacobson partnered with the CBI to produce Pipeline to progress: Making UK infrastructure investable, launched at UKREiiF 2026. For more information, please reach out to our infrastructure and public-private partnerships team.

View the report