More successes for the Council of the Year!
Award-winning Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has just been shortlisted for more national honours.
After scooping the prestigious Council of the Year 2012 title at the recent Local Government Chronicle Awards, Southend-on-Sea Borough Council has now reached the finals of anothermajor contest.
The Council has been shortlisted in three categories - Workforce Transformation, Shared Services, and Transformation through IT – in the Municipal Journal (MJ) Achievement Awards.
For the Workforce Transformation category, the Council’s workforce strategy caught the eye of the judges. This strategy is helping to keep staff engaged and fully involved in improving their working practices despite challenging economic times.
It includes establishing the internal talent pool which has so far redeployed 60 Council staff whose jobs were redundant, hiring 21 apprentices, and investing in organisational and staff development.
To illustrate the workforce strategy’s success, performance in every service area has improved, there are 33 per cent fewer sickness absences, the Council is ranked at 27th best employer in the country in the Stonewall Workplace Equality Index, and is now accredited with the Investors in People silver standard.
Another success is the Public Legal Partnership – where 22 authorities including Southend - share legal services and expertise, to save resources, and boost bargaining power.
This partnership was shortlisted for both the categories of Shared Services and Transformation through IT in the MJ awards, and was also commended in the Legal Services category.
Meanwhile, the Council’s innovative Insurance Team was also commended in the Customer Behaviour Change category of the MJ awards, as well being a finalist in the category of ‘Best Risk Management Approach in the Public Sector’, for the forthcoming Strategic Risk Awards.
This achievement is the result of a special initiative. In certain cases when someone makes a direct personal injury claim, a Council officer may visit them to discuss the matter in person. This direct and personal approach frequently enables the case to continue without the claimant needing to engage a solicitor. Then, Council is subsequently required to pay compensation, this can be done without the additional expense of having to pay the claimant’s third party solicitors costs, which could quite often be three to four times the amount of compensation paid.
It gives the individual a better claims service, but also saves the drain on the Council’s budget, allowing much-needed funds to remain with frontline services.
The winners of the Strategic Risk Awards will be announced in May, and the MJ awards in June.
Southend-on-Sea Borough Council’s Chief Executive, Rob Tinlin said: “These achievements are terrific news. They demonstrate that the Council’s work to create a Better Southend for the benefit of all our residents is being nationally recognised.
“These successes also show that since winning the Council of the Year Award, we have not rested on our laurels. We are continuing to make great strides amidst tough competition, and despite the very difficult economic challenges we face.”
