Sometimes I feel I’m standing at the sky’s edge. Here we are reinventing local government on a daily basis on little more than a wing and a prayer.

We are, of course, used to working without rule books, manuals and end games. Part of the pleasure of the job comes from the freedom to think for yourself and work out the best solutions for your own place.

But I’m starting to be careful what I wish for. We’ve had two successive governments whose view of local government is to reduce it in size and cut its budget – with the vigorous application of the latter ensuring the former.