The legal chief of the UK’s biggest local council has slammed a “poor-quality” Law Society consultation on the role of monitoring officers, describing it as a “waste of money”.
Birmingham City Council head of legal Mirza Ahmad is refusing to take part in the appraisal.
The Law Society and Solicitors in Local Government (SLG) want to replace the position of monitoring officer with that of chief legal officer, as monitoring officers are not required to have legal qualifications.
In a letter to the Law Society Ahmad said: “A lot of money is being wasted on a consultation which will add little, if any, value to monitoring officers, local government or the legal profession. The key issue is whether or not the monitoring officer should be legally qualified and, on that simple question, the answer is a definitive yes.”
Law Society director of policy Mark Stobbs said: “The role of monitoring officers has grown significantly. It is an appropriate time to ask the question.”
Consultation
I think the Monitoring Officer should be a layman, albeit a very experienced officer in his own field.
Views on a council proposal can have more to do with what the residents want than some legal technicality.
Surely, some of the executives already have legal qualifications. How many more lawyers does a council need?
Anonymous doesn’t know how local authorities work
Local authorities have a raft of advisers on ‘commercial’ and financial issues.
The MO is precisely there to deal with legality and, really, nothing else.
It is the role of members and service heads to determine policy.
It is slightly incredible that a legal qualification is not already mandatory.
I agree with second anonymous. An MO who isn’t a qualified lawyer is as useful as a S.151 Officer with no accounting qualifications. In that regard I agree with the Law Society’s principle motive but think that the new designation is simply telling LA’s what to do with their monitoring arrangements as well as wasting their time and our money.