The Role
Our client, a local authority in the south east, requires an interim Director of Law for a few months until a permanent appointment is made in the new year.
You will be required to:
- Personally advise the Chief Executive, Members and other Strategic Directors on constitutional matters and decision- making and give clear options and sound practical recommendations on proposed ways forward.
- Provide strategic approach to litigation and contentious areas of legal work and proactive approach to engaging with services to avoid or minimise litigation
- Lead and develop an efficient and effective democratic services team.
- Be accountable for the effective management of elections.
- Provide effective development of the service including having effective workforce plans in place, in terms of capacity and capability, motivating and developing staff and fostering talent.
- Display financial and business acumen and ability to review service budget structure and if approved implement a traded model for legal services and continually ensure value for money services
- Promote a partnership working style within own service area and with other support services.
- Be highly collaborative and able to share resources with other local authorities to create resilience in hard to recruit areas
- Be a corporate player and to positively influence in areas such as diversity and inclusion, public sector equality duty and information governance
- Act as the Council’s statutory Monitoring Officer ensuring that lawful decision making, sound corporate governance, compliance and transparency is embedded in all service areas.
This will be for a period of three to four months within IR35.