Funding: Economics and Society Research Council ESRC
Researchers: John Raine, Peter Watt
Partners: Matix Economics
Research into ‘Integrated Public Service Budgets’ to the Economics and Social Research Council (under the Local Authorities & Research Councils Initiative (LARCI). This is to be published in early April 2011.
The study is about collaborative budgeting initiatives involving local authorities and other partners, and reports the findings of a national survey of experiences of such collaborations and, in more depth, on the lessons from five case-studies as follows: ‘the North London Waste Authority’; LB Sutton’s ‘Safer Sutton Partnership’; Greater Manchester’s ‘North West Resettlement Consortium’; ‘The Malvern Hills Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty Partnership’; and Coventry, Solihull & Warwickshire’s ‘The Academy’: Shared Learning & Development Partnership’
Project aims and objectives
This research, examines and establishes the costs and benefits of aligning or pooling budgets across activities, services, and organisations. It provides information to help councils, and their partners decide on when, and how, to align or pool budgets to deliver planned outcomes and achieve efficiency gains; and when, and how, investment in prevention work by one or more partners will deliver medium or long-term savings for other partners. The research sponsor, LARCI is jointly funded by the UK Research Councils, the Local Government Association, Local Government Improvement and Development, the Audit Commission, and Whitehall’s department of Communities and Local Government.