The prospectus for bids to become the next four community budget pilots covering neighbours and 'whole place' is a right riveting read.

Even Eric Pickles joked it was 'dull as dishwater.' In an effort to tickle the tummies of his audience of mainly council leaders he said this was deliberate so that the rest of Whitehall wouldn't cotton on that all their power was slipping away to town and county halls. As if.