I was struck at a meeting last week when someone stated that the technical partner of the local authority had a ‘fifteen year contract’. How many people who work in a local authority have that sort of guarantee of stability of regular employment?

The next day Gordon Brown announced 100,000 civil servant jobs are to go as a result of investment in technology.He quotes an investment figure of £6bn which makes me wonder if he is really including all e-government spending and therefore local authorities as well.

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In recent years there have been large shifts in manufacturing and distribution from being labour intensive to capital intensive industries. With the continual investment of technology into the service sector, will this process begin to reduce the number of white collar jobs?

And if the proposed job reductions in Whitehall could be 100,000 - what might the numbers be in the Town Hall?