Like most councils, Staffordshire CC seeks to present its draft budget proposals this month. When we booked our peer challenge, we expected there to be no difference this year.

But due to unprecendented financial challenges, we took proactive steps to manage a forecasted £35m shortfall in 2019/20 and decided to set our plans to fit with consultation timetables three months early. This was in the middle of the week of the planned visit by the peer challenge team.