Think-tank ecosystem: no funding disclosure requirement and no regional policy capacity

There is no legal requirement for think tanks to disclose funders. openDemocracy's revived Who Funds You? project rated several of the most ministerially connected tanks (IEA, Policy Exchange, Adam Smith Institute, Legatum, TaxPayers' Alliance) 'E' for transparency and traced ~£25m of pre-election policy funding to opaque sources; the Transparency of Lobbying Act 2014 covers consultant lobbyists, not think tanks. Unlock Democracy and On Think Tanks have proposed reforms; none has been adopted. Separately, the ~150-strong UK think-tank sector clusters in London: IPPR North is the main sustained regional exception, leaving new mayoral strategic authorities (now major policymaking venues) without independent local policy and evidence capacity.

Organisations shaping ministerial decisions face weaker disclosure rules than the consultant lobbyists Parliament regulated in 2014. Meanwhile new regional governments lack independent policy capacity, so increasingly consequential devolved decisions are made with London-produced evidence, or none at all.

Two instruments: (1) extend lobbying-register-style disclosure so organisations meeting ministers or giving parliamentary evidence must declare funders above a threshold; (2) a philanthropic pooled endowment for regional policy institutes attached to strategic authority geographies (on the Centre for London / IPPR North model).

// Build now: First artefact: philanthropic pooled endowment for regional policy institutes (IPPR North model); statutory funder disclosure remains state-led.

Bodies shaping ministerial decisions face weaker disclosure than regulated lobbyists while new regional governments lack independent policy capacity; both fixes are moderate, unadopted, and undated.