T here was a time when the local government finance officer was mostly left alone to work on their beloved spreadsheets and ‘finance' was a place where you only went if you wanted your petty cash topped up. But the modern finance function is now a (virtual and in real life) hive of progressive activity.

Today, not only do we love PowerPoint about as much as we love Excel, we're also so much more than the traditional gatekeepers, stewards and messengers – we're innovators, enablers, partners and commissioners. I'd go as far to say that we're the engine room of the local government machine.