I spent a recent commute reading the executive summary of think-tank IPPR's Commission on Economic Justice. The product of a two-year enquiry into the UK economy, the report outlines with devastating clarity the profound economic injustice that scars our country. Too many households are no better off than a decade ago, the economy is failing to deliver rising living standards for a majority of the population, and nearly a million people are on zero hours' contracts.

None of this comes as a surprise to local government. Day in, day out, we see in individuals, families and communities experiencing the impact of income inequality and Europe's most geographically unbalanced economy. But the Commission is not simply a council of despair. It presents a genuinely radical 10-part plan for economic reform to achieve prosperity and justice.