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Role of the officers

Find out about the Section 151 Officer, the Monitoring Officer and the Head of Paid Service.

What are these officers?

The Head of Paid Service, the Monitoring Officer and the Section 151 Officer, are three posts that the council are required by law to make. They have specific statutory responsibilities and are subject to special statutory rules as to their appointment and dismissal.

What are their responsibilities?

The responsibilities of the three posts are set out in section 19: Statutory Appointments/Designations of the council's constitution. In summary the Head of the Paid Services is responsible to the council for carrying out the council's work. The Monitoring Officer is responsible to the council for the lawfulness and fairness of the council's decision-making and the Section 151 officer is responsible to the council for the proper conduct of its financial affairs.

Who are these officers?

Head of the Paid Service - Ian Miller, Chief Executive

Monitoring Officer - Caroline Newlands, Solicitor to the Council

Section 151 Officer - Helen Ogram, Head of Resources as of 1 January 2022

Chief Internal Auditor

In addition to the three statutory officer posts, there is a requirement for the council to "maintain an adequate and effective system of internal audit of its accounting records and of its system of internal control in accordance with the proper internal audit practices". In meeting these requirements the council has appointed Cheryl Ellerton, Audit Manager, to the post of Chief Internal Auditor. The responsibilities of the Chief Internal Auditor are contained in the Internal Audit Charter. This is currently not available to view on our website, however, if you wish to read it please contact the web team.

Glossary

Head of Paid Service

In reference to the head of paid service cited in chapter 8 , 43(2a) of the Localism Act 2011, this refers to the Local Government and Housing Act 1989, section 4 Designations and reports of the head of paid service.

  1. Section 4 of the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 provides that it is the duty of every local authority to designate one of their officers as its Head of Paid Service.
  2. It shall be the duty of the head of a relevant authority’s paid service, where he considers it appropriate to do so in respect of any proposals of his with respect to any of the matters specified in subsection (3) below, to prepare a report to the authority setting out his proposals.
  3. Those matters are:
    1. the manner in which the discharge by the authority of their different functions is co-ordinated;
    2. the number and grades of staff required by the authority for the discharge of their functions;
    3. the organisation of the authority’s staff;
    4. the appointment and proper management of the authority’s staff. 

Monitoring Officer

In reference to the designated monitoring officer cited in chapter 8, 43(2b) from the Localism Act 2011, this refers to the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 section 5 Designation and reports of monitoring officer.

1. It shall be the duty of every relevant authority:

  1. to designate one of their officers (to be known as “the monitoring officer”) as the officer responsible for performing the duties imposed by this section and, where relevant, section 5A; and
  2. to provide that officer with such staff, accommodation and other resources as are, in his opinion, sufficient to allow those duties and, where relevant, the duties under section 5A to be performed;

and subject to subsection (1A) below the officer so designated may be the head of the authority’s paid service (or, in the case of a police authority established under section 3 of the Police Act 1996, or the Metropolitan Police Authority, the clerk to the authority) but shall not be their chief finance officer.

1A. The officer designated under subsection (1) above by a relevant authority to which this subsection applies may not be the head of that authority’s paid service.

Section 151 Officer

In reference to the statutory chief officer cited in chapter 8, 43(2c) from the Localism Act 2011, it refers to the Local Government and Housing Act 1989 section 2 (6, 7, 8 and 9) which cites the Local Government Act 1972 section 151 Financial administration.

6. In this section “the statutory chief officers” means:

  1. the officer having responsibility, for the purposes of section 151 of the Local Government Act 1972, section 73 of the Local Government Act 1985, section 112 of the Local Government Finance Act 1988, section 127(2) of the Greater London Authority Act 1999 or section 6 below or for the purposes of section 95 of the Local Government (Scotland) Act 1973, for the administration of the authority's financial affairs.

7. In this section “non-statutory chief officer” means, subject to the following provisions of this section:

  1. a person for whom the head of the authority's paid service is directly responsible;
  2. a person who, as respects all or most of the duties of his post, is required to report directly or is directly accountable to the head of the authority's paid service; and
  3. any person who, as respects all or most of the duties of his post, is required to report directly or is directly accountable to the local authority themselves or any committee or sub-committee of the authority.

8. In this section “deputy chief officer” means, subject to the following provisions of this section, a person who, as respects all or most of the duties of his post, is required to report directly or is directly accountable to one or more of the statutory or non-statutory chief officers.

9. A person whose duties are solely secretarial or clerical or are otherwise in the nature of support services shall not be regarded as a non-statutory chief officer or a deputy chief officer for the purposes of this Part.

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