
Wednesday 12 June 2024 | Grosvenor House Hotel, London
Wednesday 12 June 2024 | Grosvenor House Hotel, London
Stage one of the judging process involves judges shortlisting entries based solely on the information provided here, so please make sure this entry includes as much evidence as possible.
In stage two, shortlisted entrants will present their entries live to a panel of judges for deliberation. This will be in-person between 15-23 April 2024.
This will take place at our London offices:
EMAP Publishing
Harmsworth House
13 – 15 Bouverie Street
London EC4Y 8DP
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
The communications function is more integral to what councils do than ever. There is increasing need to influence behaviour in relation to, for example, recycling, transport, looking out for older neighbours, or reinforcing public health messaging. And there is the importance of building trust in the difficult decisions councils have to take in these challenging times.
Campaigns can make a significant contribution to achieving these objectives, and this award is designed to showcase councils’ expertise in this area.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a partnership of councils, or a council- owned company. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Children’s services have operated under huge pressure for a number of years now, but the current cost of living crisis is increasing demand even further. Ensuring the best outcomes for vulnerable children in the face of budget cuts and major staffing shortages amid growing understanding of risks outside the home, such as county lines and child sexual exploitation, is extremely challenging. This award is intended to recognise the success of those councils that adopt a genuinely strategic approach to this vital service area to deliver improvements for children and young people despite this difficult environment.
Entries can focus either on a specific aspect of the council’s work on children’s services or the entirety of its work on children’s services.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Many councils are seeking to establish a new relationship with local people and local communities. Community involvement and engagement is increasingly important as a way of shaping council thinking, co-designing services and responding to continuing resource pressures. It may also involve direct community involvement in service delivery. This award is intended to showcase the whole range of community involvement.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
LGC’s Council of the Year will be the council which has the most learning and inspiration to offer the rest of local government. The winner should demonstrate underlying sustained strong performance, innovation and excellent leadership across the broad spectrum of its work.
Judges will be asked to disregard any advantages a council has based on its size or location, and they will not award Council of the Year on the basis of the scale of the challenges a council has faced. The winner will be chosen on the basis of the delivery of strong outcomes, the quality of the council’s community leadership, and the evidence that the council is doing the best for its area, all in response to the specific challenge the council has faced in all areas of its work.
Judges will also look for qualities including resilience, compassion, inclusion and adaptability, as well as the quality of the council’s cooperation with partners.
This award is open to a council or, in exceptional circumstances, a partnership of councils – for instance when two councils share the same officer leadership.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award will be judged through both a site visit by judges and by a presentation to judges. Entrants are urged to use the visit to give judges access to the people – officers, members, staff, the public and representatives of local public sector partners, the business community and third sector organisations – who can prove the council’s success in the above criteria.
The entrant should manage the timing of the site visit. Please ensure the visit is used to give the maximum possible sense of why the council is a worthy winner, but also to ensure judges have plenty of time to ask questions.
After the awards LGC will work with the winning council to share their story more widely across local government through an article and webinar.
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Technology has the potential to bring about a far more efficient use of resources but also the potential to land public sector procurers with huge bills for projects that do not meet their goals. This award will go to the council that can best show how its use of digital technology is significantly improving outcomes for its residents and/or place. This could be in a specific service area or organisation wide.
Among the attributes you may seek to showcase in your entry are the benefits of data sharing; how your organisation is ensuring it supports people before they fall into crisis; and how ground-breaking collaboration between local partners has had a significant impact on your local population.
This award is designed to recognise vision and farsightedness but may also be suitable for councils which have used their existing digital technology approach in a new or innovative way.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
This award recognises strong performance by a council, with a primary focus on the relevant timescale, in developing a diverse and inclusive culture that permeates the council itself and its workforce and/or the broader local area.
The entry could demonstrate the council’s attempts to foster a more diverse and inclusive workplace for all employees, and members - promoting and progressing diversity and inclusion values from within - and describe how this is helping to attract and retain talent. It could include internal council initiatives, customer/service user-facing work, or work to promote a wide range of careers on the council to appeal to different people.
The entry could alternatively focus more on the broader local area, highlighting initiatives driven by the council to foster diversity and help facilitate inclusion across the local community. It could include how the council has worked with other business and other local organisations to improve opportunity, participation and engagement.
Judges will be looking for evidence of at least three of the following:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Councils have a major role in supporting their local economy, both in their own right and as partners alongside other local bodies, including business and (in some cases) as members of combined authorities.
This award is intended to highlight the key role that local authorities play in supporting their local economy.
It is open to projects that secure economic growth locally and/or improve economic outcomes for residents, for example through innovative approaches to skills and worklessness.
The support in question could include, but is not limited to, advice services, infrastructure, regulatory work, their role as employers and purchasers of services.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
This award is intended to mark innovation and excellence in any aspect of a council’s work in environmental services, including sustainability, energy, recycling, refuse collection and street cleaning.
Entries will be judged on the innovation of their submissions and the extent to which it is demonstrated the council’s work has improved the environment in their area and/or the efficiency of service delivery.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
This award is for councils that have stimulated and supported the development of bold new solutions and services in the market through challenge-led commissioning or procurement. Public procurement has a reputation for being a blocker to innovation, but more and more councils are finding it a powerful tool to deliver strategic objectives including making the area they serve more prosperous, ‘liveable’ and resilient in the face of likely social, economic, demographic, political or environmental trends.
The Future Places Award recognises councils which are using their spending power to engage creatively with innovative suppliers to accelerate decarbonisation and climate resilience, enable greater inclusion, and harness digital technologies.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
With financial challenges and a growing population of older people and people with disabilities adult social care continues to be under severe pressure. This award recognises how councils have worked to improve or maintain services amid these pressures.
It seeks to recognise innovative projects likely to facilitate integration between health and social care, boost personalisation, and improve collaboration between the public, private and voluntary sectors to improve delivery. This award is intended to recognise and promote best practice in this critically important area.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Many parts of the country are facing major housing problems. While a soaring market has left property beyond the reach of many potential buyers, there is a major undersupply of rented accommodation, and often housing can be of a poor quality. More and more households are stuck in temporary accommodation while the need to find homes for refugees has added to pressure on limited supply.
This award is for the local authorities that have done most to devise imaginative solutions to ease such problems, be they in social housing, the private rental sector, in accelerated house building or in enabling home ownership, or in tackling homelessness.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Councils have a long track record of innovation, but the current combination of rising demand and inflationary pressures means it is more important than ever.
This award is intended to celebrate councils which have used innovation to re-think services in order to achieve better outcomes for citizens and communities either at less cost, or with improved experience. The project should centre on the relevant timescale.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
The team in question should have more than 20 members. Teams are critically important to the effective working of local government, whether the team is a management team, a frontline service team or a central services team. This award is intended to showcase the ingredients that make council teams effective and contribute to local democracy, local service delivery and the smooth operation of the organisation. Entries may focus on the team’s innovation, resilience, inclusivity and, of course, results.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
The team in question should have between 11 and 20 members.
Teams are critically important to the effective working of local government, whether the team is a management team, a frontline service team or a central services team. This award is intended to showcase the ingredients that make council teams effective and contribute to areas such as local democracy, local service delivery and the smooth operation of the organisation. Entries may focus on the team’s innovation, resilience, inclusivity and, of course, results.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to a single council or in exceptional circumstances, such as where two or more councils share a management, a partnership of councils.
After more than a decade of funding restraint, times have never been harder for local government. Even well-run councils must constantly look to improve and innovate to ensure they are making the most of limited funding to deliver high quality services and provide active place leadership. However, years of restructuring and efficiencies have left some more junior staff wary of some so-called transformation programmes.
This award seeks to recognise those local authority senior management teams that have successfully led major organisational change or reform to deliver genuine improvement, wherever they are starting from. This could be a successful change programme that has improved the culture, efficiency or reputation of the organisation. Entries should be able to demonstrate tangible outcomes along with buy in from the workforce and evidence the change has become embedded in the organisation.
Submissions should focus on any of the following:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Councils are uniquely placed to effect change in response to the climate crisis and many are leading the way on the road to net zero. This award is intended to mark excellence in any aspect of a council’s work in addressing the carbon footprint of the council, its services and its broader local area.
Entries may include work to capture climate benefits from changed behaviours or work with local businesses and communities to address the climate crisis and secure environmental improvements. Entries will be judged on the innovation of their submissions, the extent to which it has delivered measurable change, the quality of evidence of support from local communities, and the ability for other councils to replicate the work.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon:
This award aims to recognise an exceptional individual in local government who embodies the qualities of resilience, compassion, flexibility, innovation and creativity to cope with adversity. The recipient may have developed innovative solutions to enable their council and its partners to manage a challenging situation whether as a result of national or local issues.
Anyone working in local government at any level is eligible to apply. This is not a lifetime achievement award – it is a reflection of the individual’s contribution predominantly during the period in question.
The individual needs to still be working in local government at the time of the announcement of the Awards shortlist and have no plans or expectation to not be working in local government at the time of the Awards ceremony.
We welcome entries from candidates themselves or nominations from those who wish to highlight an individual they believe merits this recognition.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged upon
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
Local government’s role in public health presents a major opportunity for councils and their partners to protect and improve the health and wellbeing of their local communities. The impact of social determinants of health on health inequalities was tragically highlighted during the pandemic but the development of integrated care systems with their stated focus on population health could present an opportunity for more wide ranging action.
Entries are likely to focus on the development of evidence-based solutions to reduce health inequalities, the impact of the work in question such as better health and wellbeing, and (potentially) how the totality of the council’s work is helping to achieve the objectives in question.
This award is intended to recognise the councils that are making the most of their role in public health.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to any partnership featuring one or more councils and alongside one or more private or voluntary sector partners. It could potentially additionally include a partner from another part of the public sector, although it is the public/private or public/voluntary partnership which is the key element.
Councils no longer work in isolation. Increasingly they work with other councils, public sector bodies, private firms or voluntary sector organisations to devise more seamless, more efficient and integrated services.
This award is intended to showcase the whole range of partnership working. Entries should demonstrate that the partnership has brought about service improvements and/or improved efficiency.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
This award is open to any partnership featuring two or more public sector bodies, at least one of which is a council. Eligible partners can be from any part of the public sector, including NHS bodies, police, central government or agencies, as well as other councils.
Councils no longer work in isolation. Increasingly they work with other councils, public sector bodies, private firms or voluntary sector organisations to devise more seamless, more efficient and integrated services.
This award is intended to showcase the whole range of partnership working. Entries should demonstrate that the partnership has brought about service improvements and/or improved efficiency, or brought about the best outcome possible.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on:
The effectiveness of councils depends to a significant extent on the quality of their political and managerial leadership. Tomorrow’s chief executives and directors are almost certainly working in councils today in both service areas and corporate roles. The part they are playing now in helping councils to respond to continued budget pressures, developing new relationships with communities and tackling issues such as the housing need, the ageing population and economic growth, will help to prepare them for the challenges of tomorrow.
Local government needs to get better at spotting and developing the managerial leaders of tomorrow. This award is designed to help the sector to do just that. It is intended to highlight local government’s exceptional young officers and professionals who are currently not in corporate management team roles. They are likely to be heads of service or team leaders. They are making change happen, taking difficult decisions and asking important questions – while at the same time preparing to deliver excellent local government in the future.
The award recognises sustained contribution from an exceptional individual who is expected to continue to progress within local government.
The individual needs to still be working in local government at the time of the announcement of the Awards shortlist and have no plans or expectation to not be working in local government at the time of the Awards ceremony. Entrants for this award can nominate themselves or be nominated by others.
The judges will be looking for evidence of:
This award is open to a single council or where appropriate a council-owned company or a partnership of councils, including a combined authority. Private sector partners can enter on a council’s behalf, with the permission of the council itself.
The team in question should have 10 or fewer members.
Teams are critically important to the effective working of local government, whether the team is a management team, a frontline service team or a central services team. This award is intended to showcase the ingredients that make council teams effective and contribute to areas such as local democracy, local service delivery and the smooth operation of the organisation. Entries may focus on the team’s innovation, resilience, inclusivity and, of course, results.
Submissions should focus on:
Award entries will be judged on: