We recently launched our Our People, Our Places, Our Plan: The Sutton Plan, appropriately enough at the ground of our now famous giant-killing football team, Sutton United. The Sutton Plan represents a new beginning for the borough, bringing the council, our public sector partners, businesses and the voluntary and community sector together to develop a new model of public service for the benefit of residents.

The impetus for this groundbreaking local collaboration is the fact we cannot carry on doing things the way we have before. All of us in the public sector – hospitals and health practitioners, the council and housing providers, employment support services and local colleges, police and emergency services – have seen an overall reduction in the public money at our disposal since the beginning of central government's policy of austerity in 2010.