Monitoring Officer Report April 2018 LocalGovernmentLawyer 18 consequence of standing up to unlawful or unethical behaviour. The demise of the Audit Commission has also removed another check on member behaviour from the armoury, leaving the monitoring officer as the last bastion against misdeeds. The precarious situation for MOs in these situations is not helped by the recent changes to the DIP regime (see article p22) making the dismissal of statutory officers a less onerous, public and expensive task for a local authority. “Increasingly, the job is becoming a bit more like a football manager,” one delegate said: “You do find that with the change of administration or some internal politics, there will be a restructure and you'll disappear. Increasingly, you are vulnerable sometimes in that ‘speaking truth unto power' role knowing that if it's a pet project, you are putting your job on the line, but that's what the job is about.” Because you’re worth it? Given the pressures of the role, do the rewards – monetary of otherwise – justify the risks? Of the current crop of monitoring officers, most grudgingly accepted that they did. But whether the next generation see it the same way is another issue altogether. “I think that is one of the biggest challenges facing legal teams is succession planning. In reality, maybe 10% of the legal team actually want to be involved in governance issues,” the SLLP’s Paul Evans said. “Their role is a childcare lawyer, or whatever.” An urgent task of today’s monitoring officers, therefore, is to spend more time on succession planning and, in particular, addressing the skills gap in many legal team created by the demise of the committee system in most councils. The consequent reduction of the opportunity for less experienced lawyers to observe and participate in the decision-making process at first hand has reduced the knowledge of and appetite for the role amongst younger staff. Moreover, the growth of shared legal services has also diminished the pipeline of junior governance lawyers ready to take on the senior role in future. “We also have a more structural issue emerging,” Paul Evans told the session. “Where there used to five MOs and deputies for each council [at the South London Legal Partnership], now there's one service with two people in the role. So in addition to the cabinet system and the other issues we talked about, to be able to guarantee in the next 5-10 years that we can turn out our successors is a huge challenge.” Derek Bedlow is the Publisher of Local Government Lawyer. An urgent task of today’s monitoring officers is to spend more time on succession planning and, in particular, addressing the skills gap in many legal teams created by the demise of the committee system in most councils. In need of Insight at your desk? Local Government Lawyer Insight will be published at regular intervals and is circulated free-of-charge to all newsletter subscribers in electronic format. Hard copies will also be circulated to all local authority legal departments in England and Wales. Additional printed copies are available for just £49.95 for four issues. Multiple copies are also available at £149.95 for five or £249.95 for 10. Payment can be made by purchase order/invoice or by credit/debit card. To order, please call 0207 239 4917 or email subs@localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk.