IFS awarded New ESRC Local Acceleration Fund award to support social science advice for local policy

The Institute for Fiscal Studies has been awarded a Local Acceleration Fund (LAF) award from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for a 6 month project on local government finance.

The project, led by Associate Director David Phillips, aims to make the IFS local government finance model available to councils. The project will support collaboration between the IFS, the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA) and the District Council Network to develop and roll out a model of the English local government finance system, supporting councils to plan and manage budgets better, and facilitating better service provision and outcomes for local residents.

The IFS is one of eleven recipients of the LAF award, a pilot programme supporting researchers to work in partnership with local areas across the length and breadth of the UK. 

Interim Executive Chair of the ESRC Professor Alison Park commented that "these projects demonstrate the critical role that collaboration and co-creation play in bringing together complex local challenges with social science expertise in order to make a difference in local communities."