Earlier this summer at a finance briefing, my grave faced s151 officer flashed up a PowerPoint slide entitled The 2019 Local Government Spending Review. ‘This is everything we know about it’, he said. A click of the remote control and a grand reveal: ‘It will be in 2019’. And then a further click and reveal to laughter: ‘Probably’.

A few months on, what more do we know? As anticipated with the distractions of Brexit, chancellor Sajid Javid is bringing forward a one year spending round rather than a multi year financial settlement. As we start our budget setting process for 2020/21, longer term financial sustainability is our greatest concern.