A little over a month from now, the edge-of-your-seat excitement (we’re all on the edge of our seats, yes?) will be over and a new (or not so new) government will be beginning its search for more answers to public spending reform.

But in many ways, they shouldn’t need to. When looked at nationally, significant reform is happening. We just – to repeat the age-old complaint about local government – aren’t that good at telling the story.

Northern Ireland has just reformed its entire public services system and reduced its councils from 26 to 11. Manchester is operating under a single combined authority. South Hams and West Devon are completing a shared services merger, appointing staff to a new joint authority. Surrey and Bucks are now running shared consumer protection services. Bristol, Cardiff and Newport were featured last week around greater collaboration on economic growth. And the Essex deal, which seeks devolution of powers from the CLG for combined councils, is developing a county model for shared services.