My children have a few years to go yet but many of my friends have found it difficult to talk about much other than A level results, ‘clearing' for those who didn't get their first choice of university and the mad dash to Ikea and Wilko to get student dorm essentials. When chatting with the parents or the bright young things themselves, not one was considering a career in local government. Not because they had thought about it and rejected it, but because it just wasn't on their radar.

So I talked to some of the young graduates and apprentices who work at South Norfolk and, although not a scientific sample, without exception they had come into the sector kind of by accident through a vocational direction, or because someone they admired in their family or a close family friend worked in local government.