The most recent finance settlement for local government was better than many had feared. But after 13 years of cuts, stubbornly high inflation and rapidly increasing demand and pressures on our services, councils are one bad settlement away from being in a position of real difficulty.

At the Special Interest Group of Municipal Authorities (SIGOMA) we recently issued a financial pressures survey to our membership. We are still compiling all the data, but one key theme is emerging: the amount of uncertainty that local government is currently facing is something our membership makes clear to us repeatedly.