Blog: Friday 07th November 2025 - Helen Bennett Executive Director of Policy & Governance

You might have seen the front cover of the MJ this edition covering the Professional Body for Monitoring Officers. We will, of course, be launching communications shortly with the announcement of our new Executive Director for that group, who starts on Monday… oh, the excitement doesn’t stop there either. We will be formally releasing the name of the Professional Body and gearing up for launch. In all seriousness, this is a critical development for Monitoring Officers and the local government legal sector as a whole, and we are delighted to be able to bring this to fruition and stamp our position firmly in the ground whilst supporting our members.

In other news, Mazur continues to wave through the sector. You might have seen the anonymous article in the Law Gazette entitled “Mother in Law: Mazur – on whose authority?”. If you haven’t read it already, you should.  I am literally witnessing the trauma this issue is causing for our members and I am sure you are too, because we have so many members affected by this on a personal level. The author of that article accurately noted the demographics of those now facing a position where they cannot do their job. Frankly, in the main, they are correct; it is women with caring obligations together with those who could not afford the cost burden of university and subsequent solicitor qualification. 

Local government is, of course, very different from the private sector. We do not within that context provide services to the public; that’s exactly why authorities themselves do not need to be regulated. There is a disconnect here. There are a lot of disputes as to the extent to which this judgment affects our sector. What I do know is that the intention of the Legal Services Act was to improve access to justice.  Our sector needs more bespoke guidance relevant specifically to local government, and the regulator needs to move to act to rectify this position urgently, alongside the Ministry of Justice.

There will be lots of discussion around this issue at the LLG Governance Conference on the 28th November 2025. We do have a dedicated session on Mazur. We will also be covering local government reorganisation, standards, culture, AI, elections, codes, soft skills and much more.

We look forward to seeing you there!

Best wishes

Helen Bennett

Executive Director of Policy & Governance