Cheshire East Council is still without a permanent top legal boss more than a year after the previous one left.

The council has made a number of attempts to recruit a permanent monitoring officer since David Brown left in September last year.

Deputy monitoring officer Janet Witkowski stepped up to take over the role temporarily following the departure of Mr Brown, but she too has now left to take up a post with another authority.

And another candidate who was offered the post after applying, didn't take it up.

Last month the council appointed Kevin O'Keefe as interim monitoring officer for an initial period of six months.

A report to next week's meeting of the full council states: "The market for monitoring officers (MO) is highly competitive and it was anticipated that it would be a challenging recruitment exercise.

"Following a recruitment exercise, the permanent role was offered to one candidate who subsequently accepted another role.

"The council therefore undertook a further recruitment exercise to appoint to an interim MO position."

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Cheshire East has struggled in recent years to recruit and retain top bosses.

Last year it created the post of assistant chief executive to help with its ambitious transformation programme, but Dami Awobajo, who was recruited to the role earlier this year, quit after about three months to pursue new opportunities.

Karen Wheeler is currently the interim assistant chief executive.