Category Archives: Monitoring Officer

Standard

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1 Apr 2015

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Democracy, Monitoring Officer, Transparency

First councillor to be convicted of pecuniary interest offence

“Detective Inspector Neil Devoto of Dorset Police said: “This was a meticulous and impartial investigation into allegations under section 31 and 34 of the Localism Act 2011 following a referral from the East Dorset District Council (EDDC) Monitoring Officer. The Localism Act 2011 is relatively new and I believe that this is one of the first offences brought to trial under this legislation.

“Dorset Police is duty bound to consider evidence and investigate all allegations of criminality. In conjunction with the CPS a decision was made to bring charges. It was decided that charging Mr Flower was in the public interest. It is important that the public have confidence in local representatives and local politics and can trust that due process takes place.”

http://localgovernmentlawyer.co.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=22458:councillor-first-to-be-convicted-of-localism-act-pecuniary-interest-offence&catid=56&Itemid=27

Hhhmmm … wasn’t reported to Action Fraud then!

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28 Mar 2015

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EDDC, Monitoring Officer, Transparency

Monitoring Officer – some questions

Should a Monitoring Officer also be a council’s Legal Officer?

Mr Gordon Lennox is currently EDDC’s Principal Solicitor and appears to have had enough work to keep him fully busy in the job for some years. Can he also discharge the role of Monitoring Officer – a role which has kept others rather busy recently?

With the relocation now in train (or not depending on future decisions) won’t he have lots of legal work to do – or maybe he’s getting an assistant or two.

On a wider scale: Is there something of a mismatch in being the council’s Principal Solicitor AND Monitoring Officer given that the former is dedicated to guarding the interests of the council according to the law and a Monitoring Officer should be a neutral figure representing fairness. Do these always coincide?

The wider question is: how did the transposition of roles in EDDC take place and why has the Monitoring Officer’s job not been externally publicised since Ms Lyon left last year. Has it been subsumed into the Principal Solicitors job or is it still a separate one? Were councillors made aware of the change? Have any parts of either job description changed?

There is now a rule, it is said, that Acting posts should only be filled for a maximum of one year, after which the job must be filled permanently or deleted as a job – is this an Acting post (again) or not? If so, for how long?

And has Standards Committee been made aware of the changes?

The Monitoring Officer is the only person the general public can approach when they fear the Code of Conduct has been breached – we need to know what to expect.