Council votes to replace monitoring officer despite issue of statutory report

The full council at Slough Borough Council this week approved the replacement of its monitoring officer, Gurpreet Anand, despite his issuing a statutory report beforehand warning it would potentially be unlawful to do so and threatening a judicial review challenge.

On Tuesday evening (27 September) Slough appointed Linda Walker, deputy monitoring officer and an experienced local government lawyer, in place of Anand, who is also the authority’s Assistant Director, Procurement and Commercial Services.

Ahead of the full council meeting Anand issued a report under section 5 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, having sought advice from law firm Weightmans and 11KBW’s Peter Oldham QC prior to publication. (For a more in-depth background to this story, click here).

In the report Anand expressed concerns that the Leader and the Executive had been collectively acting ultra vires over his future, accusing them of unlawfully purporting to re-designate the monitoring officer role, and claimed that no lawful reasons for the re-designation had been advanced.

Pointing to the protections for monitoring officers given by the procedure in the Local Authorities (Standing Orders) Regulations 2001 as amended, Anand said: “If an authority could simply obviate the protection afforded by the Regulations by re-designating the role it would frustrate the purpose of the legislation and make it ineffective. The only reasons thus far advanced for the proposal are clearly disciplinary in nature and absent any proper reason for proposing the re-designation the Council appears to be seeking to avoid the requirements of the Regulations and its own disciplinary processes.

“This would amount to an improper purpose and make any such decision unlawful and amenable to challenge by way of judicial review. It also appears to be simply an attempt to give effect to the unlawful decision of the Leader of the Council.”

Warning of a potential judicial review challenge, Anand added: “In our view on the basis of the information currently available, absent any proper, justifiable reasons for proposing the re-designation of the role of Monitoring Officer any decision would be unlawful and as a result in breach of a rule of law.”

However, a report prepared for the full council meeting suggested that “in light of a number of issues that have arisen recently, the Council would be better served by a Monitoring Officer who is a Lawyer….[Linda Walker] has a track record working in local government legal services both within local authorities and in the private sector.”

A separate report prepared by Amardip Healy, Head of Legal Services, in response to Anand's statutory report maintained that the council was able to re-designate the role. It said both Healy and Walker had received external legal advice on the issue.

Healy’s report said, amongst other things, that dismissal of a monitoring officer did not include removal of a designation and the procedure in the 2001 Regulations as amended, only applied if alleged misconduct was to be investigated and disciplinary action taken against a monitoring officer. "This is not the case in this instance, and therefore the 2001 Regulations do not apply as no disciplinary action is being taken as no misconduct has been alleged."

It added: "In the circumstances in which the council found itself since the summer, it had become apparent that Mr Anand's lack of previous experience in the role of monitoring officer or any other investigatory or regulatory role, raised doubts as to his ability to fulfil the monitoring officer role to the required standard.

"The correspondence from the Leader refers to 'concerns' and these were in the nature of concerns about the monitoring officer's capability and qualifications to carry out the role, in particular as he is not a qualified lawyer."