A SENIOR officer who has been instrumental in trying to recover millions of pounds frozen in Icelandic banks is set to leave Barnet Council.

Acting director of resources Clive Medlam will part company with the authority after chief executive Nick Walkley decided to install a new deputy chief executive who will assume his role.

Mr Medlam was in charge of the council's resources when £27.4 million was deposited in the Icelandic banks Glitnir and Landsbanki.

In an email sent to all councillors yesterday Mr Walkley wrote that he is to create a new deputy chief executive post to assume Mr Medlam's statutory functions.

In the email, leaked to a blog called Barnet Council Watch, he wrote: “As part of this pending restructure Clive Medlam has decided to take this opportunity to move on.

“Clive has contributed much to the authority over the past 19 years and I wish him well in the future.”

The banks collapsed in October last year freezing the money, which had been borrowed to pay for a school building programme.

Mr Medlam subsequently led a delegation to Iceland to discover how much, if any, of the money could be recovered.

To date none has been recovered, but the Tory administration has claimed that almost all of it will.

The collapse of the banks and the freezing of millions-of-pounds from authorities across the UK precipitated a diplomatic row between the British and Icelandic governments.

Days later, upon learning that the Prime Minister of Iceland wanted normal financial relations to be resumed, Mr Medlam wrote in an email to his treasury team: “Who knows what this means, but it sounds positive.

“I suppose if it's bad news we just sink their trawlers and pinch all their cod.”