Friday 10th November 2006

Summary of the final from Chair of Judging Panel

Firstly I want to thank all of you for the hard work you have put into today and putting up with questions from the Judging Panel. On behalf of the Panel – it has been a real privilege to be here and have listened to all of the finalist’s presentations.

Also I would like to say to all of the finalists that you are all winners. Sixty five teams entered this year’s competition and to reach the final six is something pretty special.

We all work in tough jobs in the public sector and days like the Top Team final are real days to step back and remember the real strengths we have in our sector. It’s almost food for the soul and through your energy, commitment and belief that we can make things better – I feel energised and revitalised in my job and thank you.

We have a lot of people who are far too eager in society to knock public services – who will say that we are self serving, drink coffee all day and that we don’t care about local people. It is interesting that when they knock our sector as a whole they might say my local fire service is good or my social worker is lovely but it’s the rest of the team – and in a second we are all blamed universally.

Here today at Top team 2006 final, we have six random examples across the public sector and across our country geographically demonstrating strength and service excellence.

If people could hear what we have heard in this room today, they would be proud to know we have such fine people working in public services.

There have been a large number of good ideas at the final of Top Team 2006. The Public Services Management Network, IDeA and The Times Public Agenda will all be publicising these good ideas.

And for feedback for the six finalists. All of the teams should be proud of their achievements. The feedback is against the criteria of Top Team:

Service Excellent

• Knowsley Works Team – 75% achievement of people staying in work
• Avon Fire Service – no re-offending of you participants
• Peterborough & Stamford NHS Trust – The baby hip cycle
• Wakefield Procurement Team – feedback from your small business federation ‘from a black hole to a shinning light

Dedication/Personal Commitment

• Craigavon and Banbridge Community Health Village – Through the work of the team, the local community’s value of the history of their hospital has been saved and the 21st century part of its story as a local health provision is now being written.
• Leicestershire care On-Line Team – evidence of staff going the extra mile in the case of Wanda, with many more similar examples each week.

Contribution to Corporate/Partnership Working

• Peterborough & Stamford NHS Trust – You have contributed right to the corporate heart of your organisation, with helping to resolve financial pressures, and even getting Doctors to do dressings (or was it cross dressing – I am not sure!)
• Wakefield Procurement Team – Your innovation in extending your ‘meet the buyers’ conference to include all the public sector and 3rd sector in your borough, this will bring significant benefits to the region as well as the money you have saved to help balance the Council’s books.
• Your innovation in extending your ‘meet the buyers’ conference to include all the public sector and 3rd sector in your borough, this will bring significant benefits to the region as well as the money you have saved to help balance the Council’s books.

The Ambition Shown

• Knowsley Works Team – 8,200 more people in work by 2010.
• Wakefield Procurement Team – getting £60m into your local economy and building on that.
• Leicestershire Care On-Line Team – currently have 3,000 users wanting to increase that to 30,000 in a non statutory area, and I think you will achieve that!
• Craigavon and Banbridge Community Health Village – you have kept health services local to your community.

Above all, today has shown the real change that are happening in real people’s lives:

• Gareth from Avon Fire Service, seeing the pride in his mum’s face as she watched him on the video.

• Tracey from Knowsley Works Team, your delight and belief in what you are doing is infectious.

• Sue from Leicestershire Care On-Line Team - Our great thanks for coming into public services offices and making real what is happening within Care On-Line, some of which sounds like a dating agency with the number of weddings that have occurred.

And so to the winner:

The Judging Panel had a very hard debate as all of the teams were close with all teams showing examples of the criteria such as innovation, creativity, learning, overcoming blockages.

However, this is the Top Team award we wanted to see from our winner real evidence of team dynamics, results, outcomes and a well performing Team.

The Team that shone out with the Team dynamics was Peterborough & Stamford Hospitals NHS Trust – Service Improvement Team.

WELL DONE!!!!

Katherine Kerswell,
Chief Executive,
Solihull MBC