We need to talk about leadership. The next few years will see local government entering a distinctively new phase of its development, characterised by risky innovation, systems thinking, service integration and tapping into the energy of local people and businesses.

This is exciting stuff, but it is also profoundly challenging to the top-down, hierarchical approach that many of our politicians and officers are used to. Whenever I give presentations about the future of the sector, I hear people saying ‘that's all very well, but our local politics would never allow it'.