I recently had the honour of becoming president of the Association of Local Authority Treasurers Societies (ALATS). My first duty was to thank the outgoing president Duncan Whitfield for his excellent work over the past five years. I am delighted he will be staying with us as past-president.

Preparing for the role, I began a dialogue with the individual societies and partners to better understand what is good about ALATS and what we could achieve over the next three years. There is much common ground we can build on to everyone's benefit.