By its very political nature, the Councillors' Commission report was always bound to ruffle a few feathers. It would have been an anodyne document if it did not.

But, with its full report not actually due out until next week, its leaked draft content is already stirring up dust in the Whitehall dovecot.

The suggestion that councillors ought to quit after five consecutive terms – 20 years – and leaders/elected mayors after three terms, will go down like the proverbial rat sandwich at the LGA. After all, its chairman would be calling it a day under those rules. And why not apply the same rules to MPs?

The commission is also quite liberal with tax- payers' money for parties, small employers and allowances for parish councillors, which is also unlikely to go down well either at the DCLG or the Treasury. Its proposal for a dedicated fund for all political parties to spend on improving the recruitment, training and selection of candidates coincides with the current row on party funding and donations which, of course, it could hardly foresee.

The commission's suggestion that small employers should be compensated for their employees taking time off for councillor duties is a sensible one which ought to be rolled out to larger firms as well. The proposed scrapping of political restrictions based on salary level will be welcomed.

And, in its recommendation that councils pay much higher attention to promoting the work of their councillors through PR and out-reach programmes, the commission manages to come up against this week's broadside from the Taxpayers' Alliance over the alleged costs of council PR.

So, having the LGA, Treasury, and taxpayers potentially lined up against them before the report is even out is quite an impressive feat for the commissioners.
But then, their brief was to be radical, and in many of their suggestions, they are. The one area where the commission has drawn back is on recommending full-time, paid councillors.

For those critics who complain at the cost of the commission's recommendations, just remember that the alternative, paid councillors, would be much more expensive. The public is getting its councillors on the cheap.