Frontline public services took centre stage at this year’s Northern Ireland Civil Service Awards in Belfast, with an initiative to help prisoners understand the welfare system and the prison governor who oversaw a radical turnaround of a failing institution among the winners.
Addressing attendees at the Stormont parliament building last night, NICS chief David Sterling paid tribute to the energy, enthusiasm and dedication of public officials across the civil service.
“What we really don’t celebrate enough is the impact that you all make every day to the lives of people in Northern Ireland. You help to make people’s lives better and that is something we should all feel incredibly proud of,” he said.
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Sterling added: “I have to confess a slight bias - I am delighted to see that the frontline did so well in these awards… I’ve seen for myself first-hand the dedication and the difficulties that you face.”
Among the frontline services receiving recognition was the Department of Education’s Learning to Learn Team, which scooped the Collaboration Award. The team has worked with the Department of Health and delivery bodies to put in place support for young children and families before they attend school, coordinating with professionals such as midwives, health visitors and teachers.
The Prison Service’s Industrial Projects Team won the Operational Delivery Award for its initiative to help inmates develop vocational skills and gain experience using them. The team is working with North West Regional College, a higher and further education college, to equip prisoners with skills that they then use in maintenance and construction tasks within the prison and in projects for local schools and churches.
The Prison Service was well represented at the awards, with Valerie Hayes, who manages funding agreements with voluntary and community sector partners who provide services for prisoners, taking home the Customer Service Award. Hayes “goes beyond the requirements of her role to help prisoners leaving custody deal with changes to social security” and the new Universal Credit welfare system, the judges said.
And David Kennedy, who became governor of Maghaberry Prison in March, was one of three recipients of an Inspirational Leader Award, for leading the institution’s transformation from what had been called the most dangerous prison in Western Europe, to receiving its best inspection score on record.
Peter Hanna, leader of the Belfast Arrears Team at the Department for Communities, was also named an inspirational leader after pushing the team to the number one spot for outcomes within the government’s Child Maintenance Service – as was Leanne Patton, manager of the Customer Enquiry Team in the same department.
Despite the celebratory atmosphere, the upbeat ceremony was peppered with references to the trying times civil servants have faced over the last two years since power sharing talks broke down at the beginning of 2017.
Sterling said he would not dwell on the challenges civil servants had taken on without a functioning executive, but praised their resilience. "No matter what [the circumstances facing] us in the civil service, we rise up and we meet the challenge, and we will do it again," he said.
The winners were selected from a record-breaking 618 nominations and also included the Department of Agriculture, Environment and Rural Affairs’ Entitlements Agile Scrum Team, which scooped the Digital Award; Michael Heaney at the Department of Justice, who won the Innovation Award; the Individual Funding Request Team at the Department of Health won the Policy Award; and Neal Ritchie at the Department of Finance won the Volunteering Award.
The Department of Education's Maria McCracken, who set up a NICS-wide cancer support network, won the Making a Difference Award, while the Executive Office’s LGBT Network, which organised a visible NICS presence at Belfast Pride for the first time, received the Diversity and Inclusion Award.