Cllr Ray Nottage, Leader of Christchurch Borough Council, Cllr Ian Monks, Leader of East Dorset District Council, David McIntosh, Chief Executive of Christchurch & East Dorset Councils, Matti Raudsepp, Head of Organisational Development at Christchurch & East Dorset Councils and Steve Elkin, Chief Operating Officer of Scape Group who sponsored the award
Christchurch and East Dorset Councils are celebrating after being presented with the Gold Award for Working Together at the national Improvement and Efficiency Awards held in Westminster.
In addition, the partnership of the councils was shortlisted as one of the top three local authorities in the country for the award of Council of the Year but just missed out on winning to Aylesbury Vale District Council.
The Awards, now in their sixth year, are hosted by iESE, an organisation that works with the public sector to help answer the biggest challenge facing Britain’s public services today – “how do we deliver better outcomes, at a lower cost to the public?”
They host the Awards “to honour the dedication of those who are improving people’s lives every single day and to celebrate the latest innovations and truly groundbreaking models of working that are taking place.”
Cllr Ray Nottage, Leader of Christchurch Council, said: “We’ve been working together with East Dorset Council for more than four years now and to receive this accolade shows how much we have achieved.
“We were one of the first partnerships between two councils in the country and many others have now emulated us, realising that this the right way to succeed in the face of the stringent government cuts we have been subject to. To have been shortlisted as one of the top three councils in the country is also a fantastic achievement.”
Cllr Ian Monks, Leader of East Dorset Council, added: “We could only have achieved this successful partnership through the hard work of all of our staff and members. We knew that it would be challenging as we reviewed each of our services but we’re now coming out as much stronger authorities, financially resilient and with a highly skilled team of dedicated staff.
“We have continued to deliver the services our residents need and save significant amounts of money into the bargain and I would like to thank everyone in both councils for everything that they’ve done to help us achieve this.”
This week has also seen the councils’ Local Land Charges service coming third in the Most Improved category in the 2015 Local Land Charges Awards for Excellence organised by Land Data Community Interest Company.
