This year's autumn statement, and to a degree, the budget in March, probably felt like distant events for local public services.

There was very little fresh news to local government as a sector and increasingly if there is a local dynamic, the Treasury prefers to work on a deal by deal basis with individual places. 

But this underplays the core message of the autumn statement. We are only two fifths of the way through public sector downsizing, and if health and education are protected, the reality is local public services will not exist in the way we have known them for last 40 years.

Granted, the autumn statement is an odd creature of political posturing. Helpful when there is spare money to dole out, another trap to be avoided when there isn't. Nowadays there are a very few CEXs I know that consider it to be an important date in their calendar.