The last session before lunchtime on Thursday at the LGA Conference is very much the graveyard slot.

I remember a (not so recent) secretary of state complaining, in forthright language about the timing and effort they put into the speech, so it was with concern that I saw a session on assurance at the end of this year's conference programme. Yet the room was full of chief executives and the audience was engaged – and with good reason. Driven by high profile failures of governance, challenges in the audit field, and the advent of Oflog – what was sometimes viewed as the purview of a small number of statutory officers is now high on the organisational agenda.