Cross-Government

The Civil Service LGBT+ mentoring programme is a new cross-departmental scheme developed by the cross-government LGBT+ Network. Since work began in April 2021, 425 mentors and 550 mentees have registered, more than 500 people have been given training, and more than 1,150 mentoring matches have been facilitated by the programme. By mid-2022, it will have generated more than 3,000 hours of mentoring.

The programme has been led by John Peart, who has designed and delivered the project on a voluntary basis in his spare time. It is one of the largest mentoring programmes of its kind in the Civil Service.

HM Revenue & Customs 

The Heart Matters Walk-Up Stairs & Space-My-Pace Walking Group/HMRC Table Tennis Club has a passion for the welfare of their colleagues. Particularly following the impact of COVID-19 and lockdowns, the focus on mental, social and physical wellbeing increased tremendously. What started as an idea between two colleagues became adopted across the HMRC Croydon centre. The team was keen to make their office a greater place to work through their resilience, unity and wellness.

They encouraged colleagues to take the stairs, and introduced the Space-My-Pace walking group as a one-way directional method in the office for colleagues who could not climb the stairs to keep moving. The Heart Matters Group promoted physical fitness, mental wellness and social interaction amongst colleagues to ensure they were effective in their job roles. The group continues to promote inclusiveness, diversity and belonging among ethnic groups.

Ministry of Defence

Zoe Taylor only recently joined the Civil Service from the private sector, but as a service veteran herself, she has already demonstrated a highly effective contribution to the veteran community within the Civil Service. Zoe is determined to build an understanding of what veterans have to offer, and how they can be best supported throughout their Civil Service careers. Zoe’s focus is on mental wellbeing and she is sought out as a specialist in her field, including speaking at Civil Service Live, and delivering regular ‘keeping the balance’ workshops, across Civil Service which focuses on practical tools and techniques for good mental wellbeing. Furthermore, Zoe founded and runs Bravo Uniform, a Veteran’s CIO (community interest organisation) which operates as a charity as a volunteer, staffed by volunteer therapists helping veterans and serving personnel with mental health challenges including PTSD.

Home Office (HM Passport Office)

HM Passport Office's Digital Application Processing service has transformed passport application processing. Built in-house, the project has co-designed a caseworking system with its users, achieving significant speed and quality improvements through digitisation and automation. It is now processing over 70% of all passport applications.

DAP uses a cloud-based storage solution to break the link between the paperwork provided by 6.5 million citizens annually, and where their application is actually processed. For the first time, casework can be distributed to any passport office on demand. In future, it will eliminate more requirements for paper by linking directly to the General Register Office.

Office of Rail and Road

To extract greater value for stakeholders, taxpayers and the whole of the UK, data must be used better. The volume and type of data is rapidly increasing, and there are many questions that data can help answer. However, in many teams, only a few people have the skills and knowledge to handle data, meaning it can become ‘exclusive’.

Howard identified this issue and created an innovative solution called VIKTORR - an easy to use tool for all ORR staff to interpret our 10,000 different sets of data. He did this over and above his day job and his key insight was that any solution had to be accessible and inclusive, and keep people at its centre.

Medicines and Healthcare Products Regulatory Agency

With the emergence of COVID-19, MHRA, responsible for authorising use of healthcare products and undertaking safety monitoring in the UK, anticipated increases in reporting of suspected adverse reactions and developed a comprehensive and proactive vigilance plan for COVID-19 vaccines, to ensure rapid detection of issues and protection of public health.

The Yellow Card scheme, where suspected side effects to healthcare products can be reported, is the ‘front door’ to safety monitoring at MHRA, making this data critical to the rapid detection of any safety concerns. Since the start of the immunisation programme, the systems have enabled analysis of over 355,000 Yellow Card reports for COVID-19 vaccines, compared with approximately 45,000 annually in a normal year. Over 80% of the Yellow Card reports have come from members of the public and over 31,000 people have registered for the active surveillance system enabling active monitoring of vaccinees who may have been underrepresented in clinical trials.

The implementation of new technology has not only allowed the management of unprecedented amounts of data, but also created a ‘first in kind' strategic platform for vigilance which has brought forward thinking on how the regulator will conduct vigilance across all healthcare products now and in the future.

Department for Transport 

The Department’s statistics and data teams, working with the central crisis response team, transformed the data and insight available to decision makers across government and the public in a matter of days. This was brought about by a range of innovative approaches, including use of new partnerships across the transport sector, new methods and technology, and novel re-use of existing information previously reported quarterly. The consequence of this was providing real-time data to GOV.UK, 10 Downing Street, and SAGE, to inform decision makers and the public during the pandemic.

Defence Science and Technology Laboratory

The Software Team, drawn from across Defence Science and Technology Laboratory (Dstl) Divisions, has gone above and beyond to find new ways to deliver an increased number of more engaging wargames at lower cost by partnering with a UK software company. These tools leverage development in the industry, and funding from allies, and aid UK prosperity by improving the tools through Dstl expert input. They have delivered 50 analytical wargames, informing the Integrated Review of Security, Defence, Development and Foreign Policy, and have invested their own time in supporting the Army’s virtual education over the course of the pandemic.

Department for Transport and Public Health England

Public Health England and the Department for Transport worked together on the development of mathematical simulation models taking into account disease parameters and passenger behaviour, to support policy colleagues and Ministers in making evidenced-based decisions on opening International Travel. They developed a novel and robust method to evaluate current and future policy options for effectiveness. This collaboration and commitment ensured we provided the objective evaluation needed to inform risk-based decisions such as the vaccinated-passenger policy enabling the opening of International Travel whilst balancing the competing priorities of public health, economic impacts and global connectivity.

Department of Health and Social Care

The programme was established to meet the exceptional demand COVID created within the NHS for oxygen, ventilation and consumables. This needed to be achieved at speed, in the face of immense global competition for supply and significant uncertainty as to the progress of the pandemic. This was achieved through harnessing the unique expertise of numerous government departments and working seamlessly across NHS and Devolved Administration boundaries. This work now provides a strong foundation for subsequent longer term resilience and supply collaboration, and has helped ensure the UK has the medical supplies it needs during the pandemic.

Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport

The £500 million Film and TV Production Restart Scheme is an unprecedented intervention by the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport, HM Treasury, other departments and bodies to restart production during the pandemic in the absence of Covid-19 insurance cover. Through excellent collaboration working openly and at pace, the Scheme was put in place within weeks and has so far provided the security of compensation to over 1000 productions, supporting 80,000 jobs. As a result, the industry has thrived; the first half of 2021 shows the highest spend on record.

Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office / Home Office / Cabinet Office 

This nomination recognises the cross-Whitehall team which created and implemented the bespoke immigration route for Hong Kong British National (Overseas) (BN(O)) status holders and their families, flagged by the Prime Minister as an outstanding example of the UK’s force for good agenda. Home Office and FCDO teams worked with departments across Whitehall (CO, DfES, the then-MHCLG and the Devolved Administrations) and British Consulate-General Hong Kong on bold proposals to support BN(O) status holders and their families.  Following the 2019 Hong Kong protests, and the imposition of a strict National Security Law in 2020, colleagues from across HMG implemented an historic immigration route at unprecedented speed. Within 7 months, the BN(O) route, including a new digital route, was operational with new arrivals supported by a DLUHC-led £43.1m ‘Welcome programme’. As of 30 June, nearly 65,000 people had applied for the BN(O) route, with around 120,000 estimated to apply before its first anniversary in January 2022.

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Department of Health and Social Care

Scaling up Test and Trace over the last 18 months has been one of the most challenging programmes in recent history. A force of nature, Jacqui has played a transformational role in T&T bringing passion, commitment and enormous energy to building the largest testing and tracing capability in UK history. It’s not just what she has done – creating a highly-respected commercial function for a multi-billion pound organisation in just 6 months - it’s the way she has gone about it, as a truly inclusive, approachable and dynamic leader. Jacqui is one of a kind, and the country is much the better for having her as a leader in the Civil Service.

Welsh Government

Nicola Edwards has shown outstanding leadership navigating unparalleled challenges created by the pandemic. She brought clarity and vision to the task of temporarily closing the Childcare Offer for Wales, replacing it with a scheme to enable parents who are critical workers to do their jobs, and support vulnerable families. Always thinking of the future, she co-produced solutions to sustain the childcare and play sector, supporting parent employability, our economy, and child development.

Department for Work and Pensions

Rizwan oversees over 1,990 colleagues across sixteen Jobcentres and one Service Centre in East London, an area that encompasses one of the most diverse, challenging and complex demographics in the UK. Rizwan has successfully remobilised face-to-face service delivery across the East London Jobcentre network, which includes the opening of six new Jobcentres, and recruiting, inducting and training more than a thousand new Work Coaches. His focus on supporting people back to work has resulted in the best performance at district level anywhere in the UK. Thanks to his efforts, over 5,500 young East Londoners have now joined the Kickstart programme, with East London above profile on all other Plan for Jobs measures. These achievements are testament to Rizwan’s leadership and focus.

Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

Steve exhibits incredible leadership of a dynamic & multidisciplinary team of civil servants, academics and industry experts who are collectively delivering a high-risk, hugely complex vaccine programme. Demonstrating consistent insight, calmness and outstanding tenacity under pressure, Steve’s leadership has ensured phenomenal progress. Four out of every five adults are now fully vaccinated against COVID-19 and the booster campaign is underway, with a total supply of 123 million doses in the UK. Steve personifies Civil Service values through his unwavering commitment to serving the public and developing a spirit of resilient confidence in his teams.

Ministry of Defence

The Civilian Support to Operations team at the Ministry of Defence Permanent Joint Headquarters engaged presciently across government and non-governmental stakeholders to develop the world-leading Afghan Relocation and Assistance Policy within two and a half months. Through their deployed team in Kabul and with military colleagues, they accelerated delivery of the policy over the course of the Afghan evacuation, relocating over 8,000 Afghan nationals between April and August 2021, an increase of 7.5 times what was achieved in the previous eight years. This work prepared and enabled the British Government to relocate more Afghan staff than any other country except the United States.

HM Prison and Probation Service

The hugely ambitious Probation Reform Programme delivered the unification of the Probation Service, successfully transferring 7,000 staff from more than 50 private employers to our new Service. In the face of a non-negotiable deadline of 25 June 2021 and the outbreak of COVID, the programme team rose to the challenge: re-scoping the programme, secured £155 million per annum of Treasury investment, completed the transfer, rolled out radical new digital tools, overhauling the probation estate, and introducing 110 new specialist contracts to rehabilitate offenders. The new unified probation service is on-track to improve public confidence, better protect the public and reduce reoffending.

Department of Health and Social Care / Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy

The COVID-19 Vaccines Programme has brought together teams from the Department of Health and Social Care, the Vaccine Taskforce, NHS England, the UK Health Security Agency, the Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency, and NHS Digital to deploy over 100 million doses of COVID-19 vaccines so far. The teams have worked at extraordinary pace, overcoming daily hurdles to get millions of people vaccinated safely and quickly as possible. The Vaccines Programme has saved at least 120,000 lives and prevented more than 230,000 hospitalisations and 24million infections. Uptake has exceeded all previous vaccination programmes and the pace and operational excellence of the programme have been globally recognised.