Reading Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein's book 'Nudge' set me thinking once again about how some of their ideas could be used to manage demand for local government services when management of scarce financial resources has never been more difficult.

Their notion of ‘public choice architects', setting out services in a way that changes the behaviour of citizens, resonates with the concept of local government managers influencing demand to make their budgets spread further, for example, by involving residents in the delivery of services.