25 November 2009

Council Wins Top Public Services Award

One of The City of Edinburgh Council's busiest departments has won a prestigious Guardian Public Services Award.

At a ceremony in London last night (24 November) the Services for Communities department were rewarded for their Right-First-Time Project, which was created by frontline staff to improve services to customers and local communities.

The project won the Frontline Engagement award, Sponsored by the Cabinet Office, in the Innovation & Progress section.

With stiff competition from Gloucestershire County Council and North Lanarkshire Council, staff managed to win the prestigious prize by displaying significant improvements to the way public queries were handled in relation to winter pot-holes.

During a pilot project 140 pothole repairs were carried out every week in the improvement area of South West neighbourhood, which reduced winter pot-hole accident claims by half, down from 148 to 70 in three months.

Jeremy Vine, who hosted the awards ceremony, said: "With full management support, Edinburgh's 'Right First Time' project was created by frontline staff to improve their own services to customers and local communities. As a direct result, Edinburgh has seen vast improvements in their mail and road services, increasing staff morale and development."

David Brindle, the Guardian's Public Services Editor, said: "Despite the increasingly tough climate for our public services, standards remain extremely high and are very much worth celebrating. The City of Edinburgh Council's Right-First-Time Project is an excellent example of how services can be designed from the customer's point of view, and this particular project showed real staff engagement."

Councillor Robert Aldridge, Environment Leader at the City of Edinburgh Council, said: "I would like to congratulate the team for their enthusiasm, team work and forward-thinking in making this pilot scheme a roaring success. This is a prestigious award and shows what can be done when people work together to improve a service for the better."

Notes to editors

1. Key achievements in the Right First Time Project included: an average of 140 potholes a week permanently repaired and a reduction in end-to-end time from 144 to 23 days. Availability of the repairs squad on a daily basis increased from 48% to 100%. These improvements resulted in a halving of winter accident claims, from 148 to 70. Under a new audit system, 97% of individual repairs passed audit first time. The average response time for cleaning gullies reported by customers is down from 48 to 17 days.

2. The awards ceremony took place on 24 November.

3. Runners up included: Gloucestershire County Council for their Libraries & Information for Going4It, a project developed by frontline library staff to provide better customer service and increase the number of books (and other media) borrowed. And North Lanarkshire Council Housing and Social Work Services for their Assessment, Planning and Reflective Practice Programme, which aims to shift the focus of social work engagement with service users to an outcomes based approach.

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