Congratulations to Doncaster Council for achieving ‘normal’.
It may not sound like much of an ambition, but it is a start – and there is still a long way to go on children’s services.
It could just be enough to convince the secretary of state – still Eric Pickles, for anyone who has been living in a cupboard for the past few days – to withdraw from intervention.
But let’s not roll out the bunting just yet.
This is hardly a step back from government interference in local affairs.
Tower Hamlets LBC is still facing its trial by Panorama, with the PwC investigation ongoing and a potential intervention looming.
Birmingham appears to be in the firing line too.
With two reports out next week, the question is: will the UK’s largest council face intervention for its children’s services or will the Government pull out all the stops and go in for education and corporate governance?
Stepping down from Doncaster could just be the DCLG freeing up some capacity, rather than loosening its grip on troubled authorities.
Self-confessed localist Mr Pickles just can’t seem to resist stepping in when there is a problem – usually on bin collections – but now he has scrapped the Audit Commission, it is getting harder to define what constitutes a real problem.
Rumours of Mr Pickles’ demise, which were circulating wildly around the Local Government Association annual conference, were a little premature – and may have been a bit of wishful thinking for most.
His lacklustre performance at the event was taken as a sign he had lost interest in the sector, but maybe he doesn’t like the seaside or perhaps he remembered the reception he got last year and just didn’t want to be there.
Intervention is bound to make Mr Pickles even more unpopular.
You can argue over political motives, democratic mandates, proof of failure – or countless other arguments.
You could, but it is rather moot, as the secretary of state will bulldoze his way through anyway.
The question for me is: just how many councils can Mr Pickles run?
With scaled-back budgets, rising service demand and local government bursting at the seams, we could face quite a lot of failure in the future.
Special measures are just not quite so special when we all have them.
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