Tony Travers is Director of the Institute of Public Affairs at the London School of Economics & Political Science.  He is also a professor in the LSE’s Government Department and co-director of LSE London.  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 UK Arts Council’s Touring Panel during the late 1990s.  From 1992 to 1997, he was a member of the UK government’s 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 recently chaired an independent commission examining local government finance in Wales and is currently Chair of the London Finance Commission     

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), The Politics of London: Governing the Ungovernable City.  Most recently, he published London’s Boroughs at 50.