No matter how hard we try to ignore it, it just won't go away. The thorny issue of local government reorganisation yet again reared its less-than-glorious head at the County Councils Network conference this week.

It is only a few weeks since the idea of a full-scale shift to unitary local government was mooted by Tory grandee Lord Heseltine, in his report on economic growth. But he hadn't even got his suggestions into the public domain before the DCLG was feverishly denying any possibility of reorganisation – or, at least, on an involuntary basis.