PLEASE NOTE that entries for the 2012 Awards are  now closed.   Keeping checking our site for progress about  this year’s record number of applications.

The application form and scoring criteria for the Excellence Awards are designed to encourage as many projects as possible to apply, without a lengthy and bureaucratic application procedure. Last year we recalibrated our scoring guidance to ensure that the awards give significant credit to genuinely new thinking, and to recognise projects that have excellent potential to help councils and their partners take on challenges arising from diminishing financial resources and growing demand.  In 2012 we have largely maintained that scoring criteria.  However, we have broadened the focus on innovation and the potential to deliver results to ensure that these criteria now apply equally across all of our categories.

Our Guidance and Application Form can be downloaded here.

All applications need to adopt the application pro-forma.  Submissions should be no more than three sides of typed A4 and so must be focused and informative.  You will be expected to be able to evidence all that you say– for example in terms of the results that you have achieved or have the potential to deliver, or through a sound business case for innovation or change.   Those teams which reach the presentation round will also be required to evidence robustly their submissions in both their presentations and during the subsequent questions and answer session.

Assessment Criteria

Recognising that significant change is underway across local government, we want to celebrate projects built on sound, progressive thinking, even if it is too early to demonstrate long term results.  Your application must therefore be well structured and appropriately evidenced in order to demonstrate excellence in how the project has been planned or executed, the framework it uses to check its effectiveness and the results it is achieving (or, where appropriate, has the potential to achieve), and a clear indication of how new thinking or leading practice has been deployed.  Projects will be assessed using the four broad criteria detailed below:

 The scoring mechanism reflects these considerations, and successful applications will need to show strengths across each of the criteria.  We provide issues to consider in our Guidance for Applicants, but you will need to choose an appropriate mix that fits the nature of your project.   The application needs to be supported by examples and evidence, and in general the more evidence provided the higher the score will become.