Communities secretary Robert Jenrick’s comments at last week’s Local Government Association finance conference set out in the starkest terms yet the shift in the government’s thinking on councils taking a commercial approach. He made it clear a risky commercial approach by local authorities would no longer be tolerated, pointedly highlighting hotels and energy companies as two sectors in particular that they should avoid. It is surely no coincidence these are areas that led Nottingham City Council and Croydon LBC into muddy waters of late. Mr Jenrick criticised councils for “over reliance” on commercial income to balance budgets, displaying an apparent amnesia towards his recent predecessors' comments encouraging the sector to aspire to self-sufficiency through a more commercial approach to managing its finances.