Dumfries and Galloway Council walked away with two excellence awards at the local government Oscars last week. The Cosla Excellence Awards showcase the very best projects in local government. Last week, two outstanding council projects achieved awards, acknowledging their success and the difference they made to local people. Beat the Street and the Person’s at Risk Database were both hailed as examples of best practice and picked up gongs for breaking new ground and making a difference for local people.
The emphasis of the Cosla awards is on rewarding the most innovative and passionate developments, and on recognising projects that are changing lives. They reward those who are setting new standards and spread their good practice. Hundreds of applications are submitted every year by councils, show casing their best projects across a range of categories. Bronze and silver awards are handed out to projects following early rounds of judging by the panel. Finalists then presented to the panel who then decided the Excellence award winners.
Dumfries and Galloway Council picked up both the SOLACE Best Team Award and the Scottish Government Award for Delivering Excellence at this year’s awards.
Winners of the Delivering Excellence Gold Award – Persons at Risk Database (PARD)
The PARD database is a ground-breaking system which protects and prioritises the most vulnerable in our region during times of disruption. The system provides responders with real time access to the location of vulnerable people during emergencies. We believe are now able to save lives through the early identification of vulnerable people in an affected area.
Winners of the SOLACE Best Team Excellence Award – Beat the Street
Beat the Street is a health improvement project that we ran in Annan and Dalbeattie in partnership with Intelligent Health. The project turned the towns into large games, with ‘beat boxes’ placed around the town, encouraging participants to walk between the boxes. The results from Dumfries and Galloway were the best ever recorded by Intelligent Health.
Council Leader, Ronnie Nicholson, said “I am very proud of the teams. Times are difficult in local government just now with fewer resources available. However, it is refreshing that these two teams have created innovative, ground-breaking and industry leading solutions to deliver the best outcomes for local people. Protecting our most vulnerable people and improving the health of local people are priorities for this council. These awards have recognised our approaches to making this happen. These awards sum up what this council is all about – innovative and joined up services, delivered by hard working staff, that are changing lives every day.”
