Tony Travers is a professor in the LSE’s Government Department and an assistant dean in the LSE’s School of Public Policy. Research interests include public finance, urban politics and London government. He has been an advisor to a number of UK Parliamentary committees.
He was a Senior Associate of the Kings Fund from 1999 to 2004, and also a member of the Arts Council’s Touring Panel during the late 1990s. From 1992 to 1997, he was a member of the Audit Commission. He was a member of the Urban Task Force Working Group on Finance.
He is a research board member of the Centre for Cities and a board member of the New Local Government Network. He is an Honorary Member of the Chartered Institute of Public Finance & Accountancy. He chaired the London Finance Commission (2012-13 and again in 2016-17) and was a member of the City Growth Commission (2013-14).
He chaired an independent commission examining local government finance in Wales and the London Finance Commission (2014 and 2017). He was co-chair of the King’s Commission on London.
He has published a number of books on cities and government, including Failure in British Government The Politics of the Poll Tax (with David Butler and Andrew Adonis), Paying for Health, Education and Housing How does the Centre Pull the Purse Strings (with Howard Glennerster and John Hills) and The Politics of London: Governing the Ungovernable City. Most recently, he published London’s Boroughs at 50.