Hynes expresses concern over status of monitoring officer role

Mark Hynes, a former President of Lawyers in Local Government, has expressed concern at councils pushing the monitoring officer further down the organisation as they respond to austerity measures.

Hynes last month took voluntary redundancy from his role as Director of Corporate Affairs and Monitoring Officer at the London Borough of Lambeth.

The MO role at the council was then taken on by Alison McKane, his deputy and the council’s Head of Legal Services.

Hynes said: “My concern is that as the austerity measures impact, many councils are looking at pushing the MO role further down the organisation to a Head of Service level rather than Director level.

“There remains a real concern in my mind as to whether a MO can properly discharge their statutory responsibilities at a fourth tier rung in an authority. It is bad enough that MOs are in the main not part of the Corporate Management Board, but to be even further removed brings significant risks. However it would seem in order to make savings, particularly in the back office, councils are reluctantly taking that risk on.”

In a statement Lambeth said its voluntary redundancy scheme had seen the post of Director of Corporate Affairs deleted and those responsibilities shared throughout senior management. The same scheme had led to the retirement of one paralegal and one Business Support officer in Legal Services, it added.

The council also said it would be continuing to look at ways to reduce external legal spend and so it was actively exploring the development of a Lambeth owned Legal Services alternative business structure as a means of generating income. A report is to be taken to Cabinet later this year.