As we put the finishing touches to our annual budget and council tax setting reports there is frequently a strategic disconnect between budget and corporate strategy. In an ideal world the overarching corporate strategy would set the strategic context for an annual delivery plan to be funded by the annual budget. Events of the last year have thrown the annual planning cycle into a chaotic spin with management teams and cabinets struggling to get from one week to the next. Normally we would ask what are we going to do? Followed by how are we going to fund it?

Big picture strategy has been one of the victims as we have rushed to step up to support and feed shielding communities, salvage huge regeneration projects, undertake community testing and organise the rollout of the vaccine. These tasks have clearly been the priority and a lot of the organisational ‘thinkers' have been redeployed to support these valiant and essential efforts.