Just over year ago, the-then Chancellor George Osborne announced the re-localisation of business rates at the Conservative Party conference – around 25 years after prime minister Margaret Thatcher nationalised the rates.

Since Osborne's announcement, the debate on fiscal freedoms for local government has gone quiet. As the Local Government Association and Department of Communities and Local Government's joint working party hammer out a deal to make business rate localisation work, the sector has sat back to see if fiscal autonomy will be a reality.