The old proverb ‘the more things change, the more they stay the same’ will resonate with councils up and down the country who have had to deal with year-on-year financial pressures on their budgets for as long as I can remember.

This has often required radical efficiency savings, swingeing cuts in some services, and the use of capital reserves to balance the books. Some councils are better placed or better managed to minimise the impact of government grant reductions in real terms on their budgets and have had a bit more financial flexibility and capability to weather the storm, but many are not.