Last week saw Bournemouth hosting the thirteenth Local Government Association annual conference. These conferences started in 1997, shortly after the election of a shiny new Labour Government.

Delegates do a double take: LGA conferences take place in the same places as party conferences but you find that you are standing at the bar with people from other parties. And council officers.

Altogether the LGA version is less intense and, shall we say, less exuberant than the annual outings of the major political parties (although until last year London Councils put on a disco – a bit like the Glee Club but without the dodgy singing).

The 1997 Conference, I recall, was longer and more optimistic. This year was subdued, with the parties enjoying divergent agendas. The Tories were glad to be back in power. The Lib Dems marvelled at the fact that our group meeting was addressed by a Cabinet Minister (Chris Huhne). Labour were distracted by leadership contenders.

Pickles made a poor speech – with even the Tories wincing at the delivery and the content. He told us that chief executives and leaders had equal powers and thus chief executives could work for more than one authority – a statement so detached from reality or logic that there is again cause to worry about what on earth CLG civil servants may be telling him.

He also attacked non-jobs (and local government does make itself look ridiculous at times with its job titles, I would agree). Then he said: ‘And really, how many transformation officers and business development directors does one council need?’

Well, quite a lot, Eric, if councils are going to adjust properly to a 30% budget cut rather than simply close a few libraries.

Gove was there too, apologising for the monumental lash up his department made of the cuts in the Building Schools for the Future programme. But it was nice to see an apology after the years of New Labour, which preferred to apologise for historical events rather than (say) trashing the economy.

To coincide with its conference the LGA published the results of a survey which shows the public want doctors, nurses and other hospital staff, the police, schools, the
 fire service and care for the elderly protected. By contrast they are keen to see savings in NHS managers, quangos, overseas aid, benefit payments
and defence. Virtually no-one apparently wants cuts in street cleaning or bin collection.

This tells us that some of the Coalition’s priorities are questionable (eg ringfencing NHS spending or protecting Trident). It also suggests that slashing non-statutory services is not necessarily at the top of the public hit list.

In the light of this, Lib Dem councillors did a workshop on managing cuts and efficiencies and acknowledged the need for councils to make radical reappraisals.

But we also recognised that whatever the public may tell us in a survey, it’s a brave politician who shuts a swimming pool or leaves a municipal flower bed unattended.