Remember October 2010? It was the time of the fateful Comprehensive Spending Review, in which the Government chopped 28% from local government budgets and dropped a massive boulder into the local government pond.While the executives of councils around the country stared at each other with slack-jawed disbelief, there was quite a lot of quiet hand rubbing from the private sector which quickly made ready to launch its lifeboats into the maelstrom.Then what happened? Where was the anticipated bow wave? Where were the open-armed chief executives, making ready to thankfully grasp their steely-jawed saviours to their bosoms? The common view is that the bow wave never came, but that's not strictly true. The bow wave just wasn't as big as people had hoped - more of a ripple.
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