Today in the public sector, pressure is a constant which every council employee has to deal with. While working as a public servant has always necessarily involved scrutiny, it seems that more people then ever are surrounding the goldfish bowl with local and national politicians, regulators, watchdogs, pressure groups, campaigners and the media all poring over the minutiae of what we do and how well we do it.

And if that's not enough to deal with, as we reappraise how we can deliver services with less money, a lack of certainty about what our organisations will look like and the kind of jobs that will still be there adds to the already significant pressure we feel.