In our book, The Case for Local Government, published 34 years ago, we argued: ‘To facilitate the co-ordinated provision of services, the elected bodies responsible for health services should be the same as those responsible for so many other community services, that is the local authorities.’

This is still the answer today, as siren voices call for local government to lose social care and for it to be merged into a National Health and Social Care Service. Local government is too often attacked as the villain, whereas blame should be placed on central government and the NHS.