I was not surprised by your article 'Councils battle to keep lawyers' (see (2006) Gazette, 3 August, 3), and while salaries do play a significant role in the problem they are not the main reason.



When I became an articled clerk in 1973, there was a natural progression available through to chief executive (or in those days the far more august title of town clerk). Training was given on this assumption and thus suitable people became aware of all council matters. Nowadays, especially among generalists, there is an opposition to progressing professionals. I believe the civil service is similar.



Equally, this progression has not been helped by the failure of the profession to insist on a level playing field among local authorities' statutory officers. These are the head of paid service (chief executive), the section 151 officer (finance), and the monitoring officer (usually legal).



I say 'usually legal' since there is no statutory requirement for this, although a section 151 officer must have an accountancy qualification. Equally, while there are sound reasons why the head of paid service cannot be the monitoring officer, those same reasons apply to the section 151 officer role but are not in existence.



Before these restrictions were in place, I was both head of paid service and monitoring officer, a position which helped me and was liked by my members.



The position of the finance chief has been robustly and highly defended by its professional body, but the Law Society has failed in its own obligations and bluntly it is not seen as being interested in our lot by local authority solicitors.



JKM Krawiec, chief executive, North East Lincolnshire Council, Grimsby