There is still a misconception from many that as councils we simply collect taxes which funds the services we commission and provide. The complexity around predicting our income and the importance of profiling our cashflow can bypass many as we strive to take on new and innovative approaches to raise revenue and deliver value differently.

I was reflecting on this following a conversation with a friend from the private sector about the way they were monitoring and managing their various income streams, who looked slightly surprised when I pointed out it was just as important to do the same in the public sector. Their notion of ‘profit and margins' might be couched in different terms, but it is still all about how to drive value out of what we can do, into what we have to do.