A body representing local government lawyers has unveiled a ‘good governance’ code of practice to support monitoring officers in ensuring councils behave lawfully.
Lawyers in Local Government has worked with the Chartered Institute of Public Finance and Accountancy, and Solace, a representative body for chief executives, to develop a code setting out expectations for the three statutory officers who maintain a council’s corporate health and effectiveness: chief executive, chief financial officer and monitoring officer.
Helen Bradley, a monitoring officer and LLG’s governance national lead, said the code is a great foundation to raise awareness of the statutory officers’ roles, particularly the monitoring officer’s role ‘which is perhaps the least understood of the three’.
The 22-page code of practice comprises seven standards, with guidance on how they should be achieved. The three officers must understand governance, act wisely, lead ethically, act effectively, resource the roles, build resilience and deliver sound decision-making.
To act effectively, the head of paid service, chief finance officer and monitoring officer should meet regularly to review current and likely future issues that will raise political, financial, legal, staffing or other issues that might affect their statutory duties. They must have access to brief the leader or directly-elected mayor, and have the authority to attend formal and informal meetings between chief officers and elected members.
To deliver sound decision making, statutory officers must ensure council decisions are ‘understandable, lawful and implementable, set out in plain English’, and act swifty if the local authority falls short.
On ‘difficult’ times, the code says: ‘From time to time, local authorities may find themselves in financial difficulty, governance or service failures or suffering the results of a poor culture, bad administration or inadequate standards of decision making. In such situations, it is the role of the statutory officers to work together to flag concerns as early as possible as highlighted within this code.’
