One feature notably absent from last week's boomtime Budget was any suggestion of council tax reform. Chancellor Rishi Sunak announced a raft of discounts for business ratepayers and a review of the whole business rate system in light of mounting complaints by high street retailers, but made no mention about council tax which brings in £31bn.

The IFS, which has been conducting a series of studies into local government finance, this week published its latest proposal for council tax reform ‘to bring it into the 21st century.' There has long been controversy about the council tax, whose eight bands are still based on 1991 property values and therefore bear little resemblance to the current property market.