After a decade of austerity, local government is in surprisingly good fiscal shape – and that is before the provisional local government finance settlement that communities secretary Robert Jenrick hailed as ‘the biggest multi-billion pound spending increase for councils in a decade’.

According to the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy (CIPFA), the vast majority of local authorities are showing no signs of major financial stress. Last month, the accountancy body publicly launched its controversial financial resilience index for the first time.