National Lead for Monitoring Officers and Governance & Vice President
Lawyers in Local Government (LLG)
Helen has over 20 years local government experience having worked in both district and unitary authorities. Initially specialising in criminal and civil litigation, all of Helen’s roles have included a focus on local authority governance, which reflects her interest in this area of expertise. She is politically astute and has successfully supported senior officers and members to navigate political change within authorities.
Through her work with LLG, Helen is acutely aware of the challenges faced by Monitoring Officers across the sector and the need for strong local authority governance. She is currently working with a number of stakeholders to clarify the role of Monitoring Officer, the requisite skills sets and how to develop the Monitoring Officers of the future. This work also involves looking at the lessons to be learned from public interest/governance reports, understanding why the traditional safeguards failed to operate effectively and how to strengthen those safeguards.
This session will explore practical strategies to improve standards in public life across the sector. We will hear from practitioners, ethics champions and lawyers how to recover from a crisis, approach better governance and ethical decision making, while engaging the whole organisation.
