New! Access to Evidence Initiative
LARCI launches a new Access to Evidence initiative to make Research Council funded research more easily accessible to local authorities.
This initiative gives you the opportunity to tell us what research topics you need to know about within your local government organisation – what are your knowledge needs, where are the gaps, what information would really make a difference?
We will use your input to determine the content of the research section on our new website www.larci.org.uk, and refine the additional information we signpost. We will also use your responses to encourage researchers to focus on and promote their work more widely to the local government sector.
Please send suggestions using the Accessing to Evidence summary form below to larci@rcuk.ac.uk by Friday 1 October 2010, and promote to colleagues and networks.
View the Accessing to Evidence Initiative Details here 
Download the Accessing to Evidence Summary Form here 
About LARCI
Strategically positioned at the interface between local authorities and the Research Councils, LARCI provides a response to the growing demand on local authorities for evidence-based policy making. LARCI brings local authorities and Research Councils into closer partnership, leading to better informed research, policy and practice, and facilitating knowledge exchange at a strategic and operational level.
Input from local authorities helps the Research Councils ensure the projects they fund have practical applications; using Research Council-funded research helps local authorities ensure their policies are based on reliable information.
What we offer
LARCI is a knowledge broker for local authorities and Research Council-funded researchers. We believe local government and academic researchers have much to gain from each other through research partnerships and the sharing of best practice. LARCI promotes access to useful research, funding sources and collaborative opportunities through a website, a quarterly e-newsletter and other publications, e-bulletins, a seminar series, an enquiry service, and a tailored brokering service bringing academics and practitioners together for collaboration in areas of mutual interest.
...to local authorities By disseminating the latest and most robust research relevant to local authorities, LARCI helps you ensure that your council's policy and practice is backed up by a strong evidence base from the country's leading researchers. LARCI provides a channel for local government to input throughout the research process, ensuring output is relevant to you as users.
...to academic researchers By canvassing input from local authorities on the current research challenges, LARCI helps ensure that your research maximises practical applications and can make the most positive impact on local government policy and practice.
LARCI Themes
The Local Authorities & Research Councils' Initiative (LARCI) aims to make academic research much more accessible and relevant to the practical needs of those working in local government. We achieve this by bringing together the UK's Research Councils and all the main Local Government organisations to help to create a robust research and development capacity that serves local government policy and practice, and has the stamp of academic rigour. A core element of LARCI's mission is the co-design and co-production of research to ensure that research questions are formulated with local government in mind, and that the research process produces findings useful to this sector.
In 2009, the LARCI Strategic Board identified four research themes of central, practical significance to the sector. These were:
- Co-production of Public Services
- Integrated Budgets for Public Service Delivery
- New Scenarios in Local Governance
- Risk Assessment and Decision making.
Each theme has two Board Champions - one policy/practitioner, and one academic. Each pair of theme champions was charged with a) reviewing the evidence around theme research questions, and b) evaluating the nature of the evidence, and its value to policy and practice development. Their findings are presented as downloadable programme outputs: an information sheet setting out the project background; a summary report providing a brief introduction to the theme; and a series of final reports and targeted outputs.
Co-production of Public Services
Co-production is about the delivery of public services being shared between the service provider and the recipient. What makes this issue topical is that effective user and community involvement may help to improve outputs, service quality and outcomes and reduce costs for local government. In response to this, LARCI has commissioned a series of research reviews to develop and promote thinking on the theme of Co-production of public services, with involvement of users, citizens, communities and other stakeholders. Summaries and final reports from this LARCI theme are listed below:
Integrated Public Service Budgets
Increasingly councils are being encouraged to align or pool budgets across areas and organisations. This goes beyond the approaches enabled by legislation covering adult's and children's care services and the local criminal justice system. Forms of local co-operation are being actively encouraged by the government through local area agreements, multi- area agreements, the Total Place initiative and the Sustainable Communities Act. Closer collaboration is also implicitly supported by the local service inspectorates' development of the comprehensive area assessment. This project is seeking to establish evidence on whether aligning and pooling budgets are effective in improving services or delivering them more efficiently.
New Scenarios in Local Governance
LARCI's New Scenarios in Local Governance project raises serious questions about long-term challenges for local governance, and how far existing institutions and practices are best equipped for future needs. In mapping out the possible new scenarios, it is vital that LARCI does not "reinvent the wheel", and that it builds on existing knowledge and research.
Access to Funding and Research
There are a number of ways to become involved in and collaborate with research through the Research Councils. Please follow the link here for further information.
Concordat
In 2007 the LARCI concordat was signed by member organisations ensuring support, cooperation and additional funding for the initiative. The concordat sets the foundations for a stronger strategic relationship between Local Government and the Research Councils to:
Co-produce new knowledge: local government will support and influence the strategic research agenda, and through active knowledge exchange, will ensure practical and widely-felt benefits from the results.
LARCI objectives are to:
- respond to issues identified by local authorities by promoting relevant Research Council-funded research
- help local authorities to meet their challenges through access to quality research
- facilitate knowledge exchange between the Research Councils and local authorities
- help the Research Councils, local authorities and representative organisations to develop strategic partnerships.
LARCI Governance
LARCI is governed by 13 member organisations working together to ensure researchers and local authorities are collectively benefiting in areas of mutual interest. For information on each of these organisations please use the links below.
The views of individuals registered with the LARCI mailing list are also important to us, and are increasingly consulted when planning LARCI activities.
Background
Local Government Shared Priorities
In 2002, the Government and the Local Government Association (LGA) agreed the shared priorities for joint working. Central and local government share a strong commitment to improving local services through investment and reform. Local councils have a key contribution to make as a result of their local democratic accountability and their ability to integrate the work of different agencies and organisations at a local level.
The document 'Partnership in action: guide to shared priorities', available to download from the LGA website, provides the framework within which LARCI operates.
For further information on LARCI please email Dr Andrea Turner andrea.turner@esrc.ac.uk , LARCI, c/o ESRC, Polaris House, North Star Avenue, Swindon SN2 1UJ.