It is with a sigh of relief that we are closing this, the final print edition of The MJ for 2012 – although anyone looking for a news fix can still find us online at www.TheMJ.co.uk.

Most years, we try to offer a quick recap of what has happened, with an article rounding up the year's events – but not this time (with apologies and some sympathy to Olympics fans!). We plan to move swiftly on from 2012 knowing that managing budgets this year has been one of the toughest financial challenges in local government history – and we haven't even seen the next finance settlement yet.