I am not that surprised that the accountants Grant Thornton claim to have found that 1/3 of local authorities are at risk of financial collapse following a survey of finance chiefs.

But I am not sure I could substantiate that claim on the basis of extrapolating evidence from just 24 councils. That accounts for about 5% of principal local authorities in England.

Smaller local authorities are at greater risk if they scale back on already small finance teams & I fear we will see a few 'corporate' failures in the next 12 months.

Improvement East (which I Chair) are putting in place appropriate, light touch early warning systems to enable the sector to identify problems before they occur, but I would have hoped to see a much more substantive evidence base from a serious firm of accountants who may well be right, but it is difficult to act on unless the facts are watertight.