Funding Local Areas
Funding Local Areas: What do the English public think about changes to how funds are allocated to local government? Findings from a Citizen Engagement Workshop.
In February 2025, 43 public members attended a deliberative workshop in Birmingham to discuss how changes to how funds are allocated to local governments could reduce inequalities. This report sets out the findings which emerged from the workshop, drawing on voting exercises and worksheets that participants engaged with throughout the day.
Participants’ discussions and voting suggest that if people were voting with their hearts – major reforms would have been more fully backed – but yet they voted with their heads at the final opportunity – reasoning that getting on the path to change was more important than waiting for a wholesale transformation to happen. Findings suggest clear support for an increase in fiscal devolution within realistic parameters; and showed where people would judge the balance of trust, accountability and legitimacy in doing so.
This review was carried out as part of the ‘improving public funding allocations to reduce geographical inequalities’ project. The work was funded by the Ministry of Housing, Communities and Local Government, through a grant to the Economic and Social Research Council, as part of a research programme initiated by the former Levelling Up Advisory Council.
This is independent research and does not represent government policy. The project aims to propose better ways of allocating public funding in England, based on a much clearer understanding of the funding system and the policy problems arising from it.
Meet the Authors
Ceri Davies-Tyrie
Ceri has worked across academia, civil society and social research for over 15 years on how to engage citizens and publics meaningfully in shaping community action, policy and research.
Working at the intersection of evidence and practice, she is imaginative about the forms, uses and impact of deliberation together with social science rigour to create informed public opinion to bear on big societal questions. She has led projects exploring some of the most polarising issues of our time, created new conversations and networks in democratic innovation and plays a role in wider shifts in participatory policy making. She is also a recognised national leader in the ongoing development of deliberative methods. She founded the Centre for Deliberation at NatCen and is Head of Deliberative Engagement at Ipsos.
John Evans
John is interested in how social research methods can be used to uncover hidden beliefs and practices among groups, and how such data can be utilised to inform the direction of policy.
As a researcher at the National Centre for Social Research (NatCen), John has worked on projects covering a range of policy areas, including Net Zero, housing and trade. His role includes bringing a range of methodological approaches to bear on diverse and socially valuable research briefs.
Before taking up this role at NatCen, John completed an undergraduate degree in sociology and criminology and a Master’s in social policy and research methods. Through both programmes, he had the opportunity to apply both qualitative and quantitative methods to investigate the beliefs and behaviours of individuals in social contexts. As such, John is a strong believer in the power of using a breadth of methodologies to investigate research topics.