Today's service cuts will be tomorrow's problems

There has been a long phony war, from the coalition's statements last spring, to the comprehensive spending review in the autumn, to the local government finance settlement in December, and individual local authorities setting their budgets earlier this year. But only now has local authority spending been reduced in reality - on average by between six and eight per cent. This year, "localism" has meant "devolving the axe".

There has been some radical action. Chief executives and directors are being shared, as are both frontline and back-office services. Salaries have been frozen. But despite the simplistic statements from Communities Secretary Eric Pickles, savings from all this will be marginal at best, and are this year probably outweighed by the costs of reducing staff levels and reorganisation. There was no alternative to cutting frontline services.