A debate is quietly raging on the future oversight for the local government sector, not least with the all-important aim to catch ‘failing authorities' before they collapse.

In one corner we have the Local Government Association (LGA) that has recently revealed plans to beef up its oversight of councils, vowing to reshape its improvement and assurance offers, splitting the two into separate functions, with a stronger peer review process and additional plans to design a new improvement and assurance framework, including financial oversight of councils. In the other corner we have ministers fleshing out plans for their new Office for Local Government (Oflog) watchdog, which to date has been met with scepticism from the local governance sector.