In one of those sad twists of fate, I shall always link the untimely demise of my hero David Bowie with the day I left my job after 20 years at 4ps/Local Partnerships (LP). These events, happening simultaneously, have prompted this outbreak of retrospection.

Like Bowie, 4ps/LP had a tendency to re-invent itself (albeit not as flamboyantly as Ziggy and co). I joined the 4Ps (or the Public Private Partnerships Programme) in September 1996 when it was owned exclusively by the Local Government Association (LGA) with a single, challenging objective – to help local authorities access investment funding from central government via the Private Finance Initiative (PFI). In 2009, the 4ps merged with Partnerships UK to become Local Partnerships (LP) but more ch-ch-changes took place when LP became jointly owned by the LGA and HM Treasury, taking on a much wider remit