According to a recent survey from the Local Government Association, 71% of local authorities are considering sharing services with other councils as they focus on finding the next layer of local government savings. And clearly this is a thoroughly sensible and practical means of driving cuts through shared economies of scale.

But in a world where both diversity and decentralisation are increasingly being recognised as two of the key principles that help to bring public services closer to the people, there is an emerging parallel move towards the procurement of a wider array of Local, heterogeneous providers.