Monitoring Officer Report April 2018 LocalGovernmentLawyer 14 Who would be a monitoring officer? As outlined in the survey results (see p4-12) the issues facing monitoring officers are mounting up while the tools and resources available to respond are becoming more limited. The list of challenges facing monitoring officers is a long one and includes commercialisation (in particular the governance of council-owned companies), the lack of an effective scrutiny process at many authorities, a growing appetite for risk to generate income, out-of-date and inflexible constitutions and – in many areas - parish councils getting more responsibility and budget delegated to them without the experience or administrative resource to cope. With this mind, Local Government Lawyer convened a roundtable of leading monitoring officers to share their experiences of how the role is changing, the challenges it creates and the best strategies to cope. Shape-shifting The past few years have seen a subtle change in the role – and purpose – of the MO, created in part by the introduction of the General Power of Competence (GPOC) by the Localism Act 2011. Initially, the introduction of GPOC seemed to be a bit of a damp squib. But as councils have sought new ways of doing things in response to austerity, its flexibility has been steadily utilised by members and senior officers. In turn, the traditional role of the monitoring officer has shifted a little from ensuring that the powers to proceed with an action were in place to ensuring that the implementation and governance of that action are lawful. The role of the MO is shifting from that of gatekeeper to an enabling role. This shift, suggested Michael Graham, Head of Corporate Governance at Spelthorne BC, has not always been appreciated by those in the role. “I think that lawyers have to earn their place there by being people who contribute. In our previous ecology of vires and saying no to things because you couldn't do it, we were very much seen as the 'no' people – if you wanted a project killed, you sent it to legal. But now we've got to be very much more, you know, making things happen and delivering things. But a lot of people didn't see it that fast.” Performing this role, however has become more difficult in recent years as the opportunities for monitoring officers to keep abreast of what is happening at their councils has been hampered by the relegation of the role from the top table to second or third tier in the corporate hierarchy. “To me the most important thing is to be there at that level of decision making which is why it worries me when I see MO posts being relegated in management Effective governance is under strain from austerity and its by-products of cuts, commercialisation and new means of delivery. Derek Bedlow hears from those at the front line at the Local Government Lawyer monitoring officer roundtable at Camden Town Hall. An impossible job? “You can avert so many problems by shaping the process gently, nudging it in the right direction at an early rather than it getting to the point where somebody's got a paper ready to go.”