The very challenging state of council finances has been thrown into the spotlight again as budgets for the coming year are set – but frankly the conversation says nothing new to anyone associated with local government.

This has been a long time coming and we have all known councils will, sooner or later, reach breaking point, with increasingly precarious financial positions that go beyond mismanagement. The pandemic and the general turbulence of the most recent years have accelerated issues that have been bubbling for years.