The next Spending Review for local government looks increasingly worrying as sector after sector is promised protection from further spending cuts. Health, education and international development continue to be ring-fenced, but now in light of the wars in the Middle East and the Ukraine, there are growing calls to invest in defence, a sector which has endured major cuts in the past four years.

That will leave just local government as the only major spending area to be unprotected.

Considering that some 80% of fiscal consolidation to 2020 will come from spending cuts rather than tax rises it is inconceivable that this should fall just on local government, especially where cuts in care have adversely affected the NHS, but politicians so far have come up with few alternatives.