AfFI is funded by the Scottish Government through leading credit unions.

Mr Barr was born in Edinburgh and is an urban and social geographer who has spent much of his career measuring and tracking social inequality. He is currently a visiting professor at the Geographic Data Science Laboratory in the University of Liverpool and has been a visiting examiner at Edinburgh University.

Mr Barr was on the Cabinet Office Social Exclusion Unit Policy Action Team, a member of the advisory panel on Public Sector information and the Open Data User Group. He spent 13 years on the boards of two major providers of social housing and chaired Caribou, a company delivering affordable warmth and sustainability measures for low-income households. He currently chairs Lymm Community Energy.

Malcolm Hurlston, founder of AfFI, said: “Bob is the right man at the right time. We have made great progress in Scotland to date; now we need to chart our next steps in Scotland and encourage the rest of the UK to learn fast from the Scottish success.”