A senior Barnet Borough Council officer left her post earlier this week after a report into a string of legal blunders showed “nobody at the authority understands local government law”.
Monitoring officer Maryellen Salter apparently left her post on Tuesday or Wednesday, according to a source close to the Times Series.
The authority, however, is still refusing to confirm or deny whether she is still employed by them.
Ms Salter was criticised in a report by independent lawyer Claer Lloyd-Jones, who brought her role to police the council’s conduct and decisions into question.
The report was commissioned after a council meeting on June 2, at which a series of blunders led to members’ allowances being approved before being cleared by a legal team and an error in the way committee seats were allocated halted decision making for a month.
Although she was originally brought in as head of the council’s audit committee in 2010, Ms Salter was promoted by former chief executive Nick Walkley despite not having any legal experience – a normal requirement for the monitoring role.
The report raised concerns that the council does not always have access to “high level, quality legal advice” and advised it to appoint an “experienced, legally qualified monitoring officer”.
According to our source, the authority has now temporarily brought in a “good, solid interim” to temporarily fill the role of monitoring officer.
Labour councillors have also called for a vote of no confidence into council leader Richard Cornelius and chief executive, Andrew Travers, over the failings.
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