Cumbria may be the latest victim of the equal pay crisis, but it is not going to be the last. The £100m compensation, which has been paid out by 11 councils in the North East, is potentially just the tip of the iceberg. The implications for the rest of local government are huge. Cash-strapped councils are being forced to provide more for less, with tight finance settlements and council tax capping, efficiency savings and improvements – how exactly will they fund these cash payouts? The choice is service cuts or borrowing – both of which will have long-term implications for the authorities, and the people they serve. The Government should be providing a lifeline. It should be helping councils to protect staff against the inevitable pay cuts which come from job evaluation – as the Department of Health has for workers in the health service. So far, the Government has made it quite clear there will be no extra cash for councils to deal with equal pay. And to add insult to injury, it has hiked up the cost of compensation further by adding tax and National Insurance to the payments already being made. Let's hope the Government has a change of heart as the no-win, no-fee spectre arrives on the doorstep of Mr David Miliband in his Tyneside constituency.

News that Surrey CC has head-hunted a Downing Street adviser to be one of its new chief officers only further emphasises the growing career linkage between local and central government. There has, of course, always been some crossover between Whitehall and town hall and, indeed, Wendy Thomson was one person who moved from local government to head up a Downing Street policy unit. More recently, it has become a steady flow, often from central to local. For ambitious civil servants, a secondment with a local authority is an essential part of a rounded career. And for those who move jobs, the salary is frequently likely to be better than that offered in the Civil Service. Overall, a career in the public sector, whether starting in local or central government, is a more financially rewarding and varied prospect than it ever was two decades back, with experience at both local and central level. Yet, this still appears not to have made the recruitment of bright graduates to local government any easier. Few students have aspirations for the town hall corridors of power, attracted instead by the glamour of the City, the media or law. Perhaps Sir ~Michael Lyons~ , by making the funding of local government more transparent will, in the process also make it a more attractive career prospect.