Being by nature half glass full people, local authority chief officers tend to take a positive outlook on life. Even in the case of the pandemic, which in every scenario has delivered them the most daunting series of challenges in decades, they have still identified ways it has accelerated changes which otherwise would have taken years to implement. 

As one chief executive said in The MJ/Serco round table debate: ‘Our job is to maintain high energy and optimism. It’s too easy for people to sit with their heads in their hands.’ The participants agreed that recovery does not mean a return to the old ways; the emphasis is on reset.