‘This is the last throw of the dice on why reform is needed,’ says Darra Singh, chair of the Independent Local Government Finance Commission as he launches the commission’s interim report.

Despite a raft of reports over the years and a growing recognition that the way local government is funded is ‘broken’, he believes we are now at a turning point for changing the finance system. It is now or never.

‘The case is powerful,’ he says. ‘All the responses we’ve had [to the commission’s call for evidence] say there are significant weaknesses to the system. Some say it is broken.’