A judge’s eye view – the 10th anniversary for the Civil Service Awards

It’s the 10th anniversary for the Civil Service Awards, and the 5th year that I’ve been involved and time really has flown by. I remember first getting involved in the awards after an enthusiastic introduction from our Global Marketing Director, which was quickly followed by meeting the then Cabinet Secretary, Sir Gus O’Donnell, and attending my first awards presentation at Lancaster House.

The Civil Service Awards fitted perfectly with my ideas of working with the Government community and my own passion for delivering social impact, inspiring people on lifetime careers and celebrating innovation. Our involvement is incredibly popular and motivating for our own staff as well as the Civil Service (I hope).

My background is a healthy mix of private and public sector work, generally with a good dose of strategy, change and programme delivery thrown in. As a former engineer I’m pragmatic and not too bad with numbers. I look for cases that approach challenges from a new perspective and deliver something tangible but not necessarily measureable. What really strikes me is the diversity of the submissions – they cover everything from improving operations and inspiring staff at the front line to developing innovative policies and running very large and complex programmes. I have seen many great examples of achievement and in early meetings with fellow judges, clear winners emerge quickly through the debate. These nominations are usually the combination of an interesting project or initiative, which is well written, and demonstrates a clear result.

The greatest change over the last few years of the awards since I started judging, has been the considerable improvement in the quality of submissions. This has meant that, read in isolation, many could be seen to be worthy of an award. There is still the odd case that is too early in its history to have demonstrated benefits or isn’t clear enough for us to be sure of the merits, but in general the submission process and short-listing panels makes the decision really difficult.

The judge’s meetings are quite intense and interesting affairs. In the room are many of the most experienced Permanent Secretaries in Whitehall and each one would have reviewed the cases, identified their key points and order of preference, and are prepared for debate. It’s a very positive experience and although we all know that we are seeing the best of the Civil Service through the 600 plus submissions, it is our job to work out which is the most deserving of recognition. It is nice knowing that by the time the short list reaches us, we are reviewing the group of finalists who will each get to attend the awards ceremony – which this year takes place in Buckingham Palace.

After a bit of small talk the process gets under way. Una O’Brien, Permanent Secretary at the Department of Health and panel chair, gets us started with a brief introduction and the first case category is reviewed with each judge taking it in turn to set out what they think is the most deserving submission and why. We proceed around the table until everyone has spoken. Perm Secs who have submissions from their own departments are careful to abstain from the debate unless asked for background detail. In some cases there is a clear leader and we move on to the next, for others it is much closer and if it’s not resolved through friendly debate we come back to it later. By the end of the judge’s meeting we have an almost complete list of winners. The themes running through the awards have inevitably changed as we’ve moved through different Governments and into a more austere environment but the impact of the programmes and initiatives being undertaken by the Civil Service are stronger than ever.

We are celebrating the award’s 10th anniversary year and launching the 2015 awards with a past award winners celebration in Lancaster House on 22 June. I’m really looking forward to meeting some of the early award winners and catching up with those winners that I have reviewed over the last few years. It is going to be very interesting to see how they have got on and what new stories they have to tell.

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Originally published in Civil Service World