The financial facts of local government life are well-trailed enough not to bear repetition and their solutions also now roll off the senior-tongue with well-rehearsed ease: community budgets, integration of health and social care, the commissioning council...

Cumulatively, all of these will, no doubt, make a big impact – once we work out how to make them real and roll them out!  But, coming to local government from the world of business, it appears to me that there is another tool in the box which isn't really being used that much so far – enterprise.