Awards win for Dudley Council’s legal and democratic services team
Dudley Council’s lead for Law and Governance and the wider Democratic Services team have both won their categories at this year’s Lawyers in Local Government Awards.
Mohammed Farooq, Monitoring Officer and the head of the Law and Governance division win the Inspirational Leader in Law Award. Diagnosed with a rare blood condition from a young age, he has battled through adversity and continues to lead a high performing law and governance team at Dudley Council. For Mohammed, the significant professional challenges of responding to frequently emerging and changing legislation of the pandemic was exacerbated by the threat that the pandemic posed to his health.
Mohammed has responsibility for around 100 staff and in addition to the court room activity, Mohammed also has managerial responsibility for Health and Safety, Democratic Services and Elections.
The democratic services team which he oversees won the Democratic Functions and Governance award category for their work during the pandemic. They effectively fulfilled the full programme of council meetings via MS Teams, they also helped to deliver a pre-emptive scrutiny process as well as delivering a full round of school appeals.
Councillor Steve Clark, cabinet member for finance and legal, said:
I’m so pleased that Mohammed and the wider democratic services team have had their efforts recognised.
Their business as usual attitude has meant we’ve been able to keep up all of our planned work despite the difficult circumstances, delivering a covid safe election, a full series of school appeals and council meetings and of course ensuring that we have been able to implement and advise on the ever changing pandemic legislation, helping to keep our staff, schools, businesses and communities safe.