In February I caught up with some ex-Audit Commission colleagues over a glass of something cold. We realised that April will mark 20 years since the start of Best Value inspection. It seems like yesterday to me, though there are many senior people in the sector who did not experience the thrill of the inspectors arriving, or the fun of the annual Comprehensive Performance Assessment (CPA) league table.

Of course, much has happened in those 20 years – April 2000 was before 9/11, the recession, austerity, Brexit, and now COVID-19, to name but a few. And I looked rather more like the picture that The MJ insists on using at the top of my column than I do today!