2011 - the year of economic revival for the East Midlands?
Could the East Midlands' economy be on track for a revival following the recession?
So what could 2011 have in store for the economic and political prospects for the East Midlands? I've detected some very contrasting moods.
Cuts to public sector funding - and their impact on jobs and services - will rarely be out of the headlines in the New Year. But the latest business survey from the Derbyshire and Nottinghamshire Chamber of Commerce offers some surprising early optimism for 2011.
"It's tough out there. But growth in employment is still there," says John Dowson, the Chamber's head of policy.
"We are looking at about 20% of businesses wanting to increase their workforce while only 10% - and that includes some of the public sector - are looking at reduce their workforce," he told me.
That offers some hope for the many public sector workers, like Caroline Diss, who face losing their jobs in 2011.
Council workers fear for their jobs
Caroline is a single mother of two from Gedling in the Nottingham suburbs. For 21 years, she's worked at the city's office of Connexions - a public sector organisation that gives careers advice to young people. Connexions faces big funding cuts and Caroline's job is now on the line.
"I'm facing a degree of uncertainty I've never experienced. Some of my colleagues feel the same way. It's unprecedented," she says.
Caroline is furious that services and public sector jobs are being cut. The Coalition government constantly reminds us that the context to the cuts is the need to combat the national deficit and revive the economy.
"Who actually got us into this situation and the mess in the first place? I feel very strongly about this. It's not about people having overspent, it's about the huge debt and loans that were encouraged by the banks. They are to blame."One of our senior Conservatives points the finger elsewhere. David Parsons is the leader of Leicestershire County Council. His council is looking at losing 1,000 jobs over the next four years.
"My hope for the New Year is that we get out of the dreadful economic mess we were left by the previous Labour government, and preserve as many of the services we can.""I don't want to make any person compulsorily redundant but that may well happen. We are working very hard to retrain people.
"We have been handed down targets by national government and that's the problem. We have to face that. It's the economic reality," he adds.
Councillor Parsons is one of the most influential figures in local government. Some of his ideas to share backroom services with other councils are being pioneered by Leicestershire with Labour-run Nottingham City.
"Our staff are our number one asset and we are working very, very hard with staff and the trade unions to minimise the impact."
So will that be welcomed by the public sector unions? Peter Savage of UNISON in the East Midlands wants some fresh thinking to avoid massive job cuts.
"There is an alternative. We want councils to go back and look at their figures. They could dip into their cash reserves, spread the cuts over a longer term and look at more imaginative ways of delivering services," he told me.
"We have to remember that for every public sector job that goes, there's the equivalent job losses in the private sector."UNISON is bracing itself for East Midland councils to start announcing a new wave of job losses early in 2011. Up to 5,000 redundancies are on the cards.
So can a reviving private sector help to cushion the blow? John Dowson of the Chamber of Commerce suggests where the future jobs will come from.
"The growth is going to be in carbon deduction technology, bio-science, green innovation but also in business services as well," he told me.
"The future will be about your transferable skills and what retraining potential you're got to meet the demands of the new economy."
"It's about your skills, attitude and whether you can retrain and adapt to new environments and think differently," he adds.
Fresh thinking and the ability to adapt always make for good New Year's resolutions.
Hello. My name is John Hess. I'm the BBC's Political Editor for the East Midlands and this blog will offer my musings on the political scene from Westminster to closer to home. 
