Mark Heath

Mark Heath was the Chief Operating Officer and prior to that the Director of Corporate Services at Southampton City Council. He is a Solicitor and has worked in or for local government his entire career He joined Southampton City Council in 1990 from Hampshire County Council. He was the Monitoring Officer at Southampton for much of that time and a member of the Council’s Management Team. He took early flexible retirement from the Council at the end of 2016 and is now a consultant at Veale Wasbrough Vizards LLP providing legal advice to Councils and Returning Officers on governance, standards and elections. Mark was Local Returning Officer at Southampton from 1994 - 2024, for 30 years. He was also the South East Regional Returning Officer for the 2009, 2014 and 2019 European Parliamentary Elections, the Regional Counting Officer for the South East Region for the AV Referendum in 2011 and the European Referendum in 2016, and the Police Area Returning Officer for Hampshire for the Police and Crime Commissioner elections in 2012, 2016, 2021 and 2024. He serves on several groups convened by Government and the Electoral Commission on electoral law, policy and practice and also writes and lectures on the topic.