Local government quite rightly lobbies continuously for Whitehall to devolve powers and responsibilities to councils, yet hope of achieving meaningful movement on this front relies on central government confidence. The thing any minister is most concerned about is council failures coming back to bite them on the backside.

While there is plenty of scope for councils to blame central government as the cause for much of the financial chaos and failure the sector is facing – austerity being the prime example – it certainly isn't the only cause.