Winners 2023

Congratulations to all the winners! This year we received 1,962 nominations across our award categories. After a rigorous judging process, the fantastic individuals and project teams listed below were selected as the overall winner for their category.

Excellence in Delivery Award

supported by Baringa

A Skilled Civil Service

Warm Scots Welcome Programme

Scottish Government

In response to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the Scottish Government worked at pace with partners to stand-up the ‘Warm Scots Welcome’, a Scotland-wide humanitarian programme which has welcomed more than 25,000 arrivals – the majority women and children – more per head of population than any other UK nation. Informed by the experiences of those arriving, improvements include dedicated housing fund, volunteer campaign and support to match arrivals with settled accommodation. As a result, guests in temporary welcome accommodation have more than halved with many thousands settling in communities right across Scotland.

Developing and Supporting People Award

supported by Serco

A Skilled Civil Service

Grief Café

Food Standard Agency

The Grief Café started with just two people having a coffee and connecting over grief. In just 2.5 years, it has grown to 3000 people on the mailing list, reaching 96 Departments and Agencies, and hosts Grief events every other week…all down to the power of volunteers. Within the café, we talk about types of bereavement, types of grief, we say the loved ones name, and we create a safe space to talk about their grief. Participants call it a ‘lifeline’, a great space for support, and attend Grief café alongside counselling.

Diversity and Inclusion Award

A Skilled Civil Service

Anti-Racist Wales Plan Policy Team

Welsh Governemnt

Usha Ladwa-Thomas, Ayanna Mathurine and Nashima Begum are three female civil servants in the Welsh Government who identify as ethnic minority. In the context of the Anti-racist Wales Action Plan – they brought a diversity of lived experience which added immeasurable value to the formulation of policy and in enhancing their professional, civil service values. Usha drew on community experience gained in the third sector as well as from working long term on environmental public policy. Ayanna brought legal skills and an experience of being a first-generation migrant. Nashima is a policy professional with a lived experience of a cross cultural family. 

Best Use of Data, Science and Technology Award

supported by Tata Consultancy Services

An Innovative Civil Service

GOV.UK One Login

Cabinet Office

“The future is here – 5/5 stars. Wow. Who knew that with a smartphone and biometric passport it would be so easy (borderline fun) and a futuristic light show thrown in to boot!”

These are not our words, but those of someone who used the new GOV.UK One Login digital identity service. This programme is making life simpler for millions of people across the UK.

The team worked with HMRC to build an app in under six months that has now been downloaded over 2.5 million times and gets 4.5 stars in both app stores.

Creative Solutions Award

supported by PA

An Innovative Civil Service

SARI Data Studio

HM Revenue & Customs

The Self-Assessment Repayment Incident (SARI) Data Studio is a collaboration between CDIO Data Science and RIS ( Risk and intelligence Service), using cutting edge data science techniques to answer a question set by ExCom: To estimate levels of unknown fraud and compromised accounts in the Self-Assessment and VAT heads of duty. The work had never been undertaken before, and consequently by its very nature, was innovative in its approach, deploying network analysis and machine learning to process large amounts of data, providing insight never previously possible, and enabling mitigating actions to be introduced to services to protect revenue and customer accounts from criminal fraud.

Evaluation and Analysis Award

An Innovative Civil Service

Connectivity and Planning

Department for Transport

The Model of Connectivity is an innovative new model that now enables us to provide a holistic view of how well people can get to where they need to go. For 180,000 output areas in E&W it measures how easy it is to get to jobs, services, retail and each other. This combines novel methodology, massive datasets, and is scaled on the cloud to perform trillions of calculations.

This new insight is transformational for our ability to measure levelling-up and sustainability; e.g: measuring the impact of potential infrastructure investments, or identifying ideal locations for housing developments with sustainable travel options.

Collaboration Award

supported by Baringa

An Ambitious Civil Service

Eurovision 2023 Team

Department for, Culture, Media and Sport

The UK hosted the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 on behalf of Ukraine. DCMS was the lead government department. The Eurovision team in DCMS was assembled from across the department from officials volunteering part of their time in addition to their day jobs. In just six months (half the usual amount of time to prepare for the Eurovision Song Contest) the team in DCMS collaborated across Arms Length Bodies, central government, regional and local government in Liverpool, the BBC, operational partners, and Ukrainian institutions to ensure that the Eurovision Song Contest 2023 and Liverpool’s host city programme were a success.

Programme of the Year Award

An Ambitious Civil Service

HM Land Registry's Local Land Charges

Department for Leveling up Housing and Communities

Local Land Charges (LLCs) are statutory restrictions on land e.g. conditional planning consents, tree preservation orders, and listed buildings. When buying property, this customer information is critical. Historically, they were held by local authorities with variable data standards, accessibility, and cost. 

This Programme has transformed how LLC data is held and accessed. A new digital, national register and search service provides instant, cheaper, online results. Travel to physically inspect reports is eliminated, reducing carbon-emissions. Improved, accessible, geospatial data also enables entrepreneurs to develop new services, worth billions to the UK, generating up to £14 of benefit for every £1 invested.

Delivering for Citizens Award

supported by Costain

An Ambitious Civil Service

DCMS Digital Communications Team

Department for, Culture, Media and Sport

This nomination is for the DCMS Digital Comms Team for its service during Her Majesty The Queen’s funeral, by creating, launching and managing the innovate live Queue Tracker for the queue to view the Lying-in-State. After consulting several large providers who hadn’t yet identified a solution, the team built their own within 48 hours, ready to launch when the Lying-in-State opened days later. This was a hugely successful public service, helping people plan their visit with live data 24/7 that reached 10 million people on YouTube and was broadcast around the world.

Rising Star Award

supported by Newton

A Modern Civil Service

Patrick Gilligan

Companies House

When it comes to exemplary dedication, courage, resilience, and exceptional contributions to the UKG Civil Service in Northern Ireland, Patrick Gilligan stands out as a shining star. Since joining Companies House just 3 years ago in his first EO position, Patrick has demonstrated remarkable potential as he genuinely embraces all opportunities to expand his knowledge and experience. Patrick has successfully applied for challenging promotions and is now the acting Head of Belfast Operations, with responsibility for office performance and the preparations for implementation of the new Economic Crime and Corporate Transparency Bill into Northern Ireland.

Cabinet Secretary's Outstanding Leader Award

A Modern Civil Service

Maria Loizou-Griggs

Ministry of Justice

Maria was instrumental in the success of the first jury with a deaf juror supported by interpreters, following the legislative changes in 2022. Due to the unprecedented nature, there was no guidance readily available, so Maria took the initiative to work with the juror, interpreters and HQ teams to pull together guidance, that has since been shared nationwide, ensuring it was fit for purpose for the court and future jurors and interpreters. Feedback has been resoundingly positive, including from the juror and interpreters who praised “…the exemplary preparation and support provided and couldn’t fault the arrangements put in place.”

Prime Minister's Award for Exceptional Public Service

A Modern Civil Service

Martin Harvey

Department for Work and Pensions

As Lead Advisor for the Durham Tees Valley District pilot for the Patient Advisory Service, Martin has taken the lead since the launch in 2008 to build a valuable and successful support programme. This support service enables both employed and unemployed patients to build their confidence towards a return to work helping to reduce the risk of long term unemployment and /or long term health journeys. Martin and the team have helped to support over 1600 patients back into work since the programme started.