Last week we released the annual LGiU/MJ local government finance survey. You will have read about it in these pages. I'm going to go out on a limb and predict that readers of this magazine will not have been hugely surprised by the results. We know that council funding is broken. Eight out of 10 of the people leading English local government tell us it is unsustainable.

This year we see that we are no closer to finding a solution. Councils are making do by increasing council tax as much as they can, increasing charging and dipping in to their reserves. And even with these desperate measures they are having to reduce spending; not just on vital place-shaping services like leisure, libraries and parks but in core life-saving areas like social care and children's services.