Lead supervisor:
Prof Daniel Wincott 
Other supervisor(s):
- Prof David Cowan
Start date: October 2024 (Full time)
Award: General
Subject Pathway:
Criminology and Law
Thematic Cluster:
Rights and Governance Cluster
Local Government and Local Governance: Analysing the office of the Chief Legal Officer (Monitoring Officer)
Decades of restructuring, retrenchment and austerity have engendered fragility across the public sector throughout the UK. Local government has been hit particularly hard, while retaining significant statutory responsibilities. A number of local authorities in England have issued section 114 (‘bankruptcy’) notices. This PhD will interrogate the Office of the Chief Legal Officer (Monitoring Officer), a key role in local government scrutiny, audit and accountability. Legal professionals should abide by certain standards of professionalism. Generally, they relate to the role of lawyers, the meaning of the rule of law, and law’s relationships with justice and with politics.
In local governance, provisions on managing conflicts of interest (‘client’ as the local authority versus ‘client’ as the instructing officer within the authority) are particularly relevant.
This research has academic and practical aims. It contributes to a neglected domain of academic research, while also working in partnership with local government institutions operating under unprecedented pressure. These aims underpin the project’s research questions:
- What are the Monitoring Officer’s statutory governance and scrutiny roles in Wales and England?
- How the role has developed over time in law and practice?
- What has caused these changes?
- How is their impact on the effectiveness of governance and scrutiny?
Research Impact
The project will consider potential reforms to improve the role. Practitioners (particularly the ‘Golden Triangle’: Chief Executive, Chief Finance Officer, Monitoring Officer) urgently need to move from short-term focus and kneejerk reactions/crises management and simplistic ‘best practice’, ‘performance indicators’ snapshot accounts of successful local authority governance, towards better understanding of sustainable performance, including by interrogating authorities' legitimacy and endurance-capacity.
Biography
I would describe myself firstly as a mother of two lovely boys (13 this year). They are my world - absolutely.
I have spent the last 15 years working in local government in England. In different departments, from children's services (and separately social services), to policy and finally settling in the legal department (starting in highways litigation and moving to governance, procurement and commercial law).
My experience has been in different authorities: unitary, district and county level, under labour, conservatives and hung councils, through excessive to negligible spending and seen the effect and impact of both on service delivery and community/social outcomes. It is this that has driven me to this new and exciting journey. To understand what is, what should be and how we can get there.