General soundings among local government's chattering classes about the Lyons review can be summed up as follows: ‘Sir Michael had an impossible job. He did the best he could.

Some of what he says has legs. We know what ministers are like.'
Yes, indeed. So ministers, this week, duly added another raspberry to the many they have already delivered to Sir Michael by ignoring his disparaging comments on reorganisation and proposing a whole raft of new, mostly county-based, unitaries. The fact that ministers did a swiftly efficient hatchet job of scotching the more-contentious proposals in Lyons, such as new council tax bands, an end to capping, a revaluation and a tourist tax, had pretty well been factored in beforehand.
Not so well factored in was the move for new unitaries. Sir Michael made his views known on this late last autumn, when he said reorganisation was a bad idea.
But this had little impact on the rush of applications, mainly by counties, for unitary status. His report last week repeated his earlier view when he said, reorganisation would not ‘provide either a theoretical or practical solution to the challenges we face'.
Ministers argue that the train long ago left the station, and all they are doing is chasing after it, although there has plainly been much last-minute indecision.
It is not often ministers admit to be running after events, but the momentum to experiment with new unitaries has been gathering speed for some two years. Put it down to unfinished business from the 1990s shake-up, or the push to shared services and efficiency, but the urge to experiment has been irresistible.
It is also irresistible for ministers. They want savings and better-run councils with sharper-edged councillors, and in big, new 2007-designed unitaries they see a potential model.
The guinea pigs of the new proposed unitaries will, therefore, lay a trail for a  bigger shake-up under a future government and that includes a Conservative one, however virulently the shadow local government team has been arm-twisting its council leaders recently against bidding for unitaries.
The main focus now for councils affected by the proposed new unitaries is to ensure their staff and backbench councillors know exactly where they are heading.
For, without them on board, the experiment is doomed to repeat the errors of the last reorganisation.
Michael Burton
Editor, The MJ