Council Wins Hat-Trick Of Awards

The Highland Council has scooped three out of eight firsts for excellence or innovation in the Scottish local government Oscars ceremony, the Convention of Scottish Local Authority's Excellence Awards 2005.

These awards, which recognise outstanding quality of service to the public, have gone to only five of 32 Scottish councils.

The Council lifted COSLA's Securing a Workforce for the Future award for its pioneering in-house social worker training programme, Growing our Own, and the Convention's Health Improvement Award with its imaginative Ross-shire based Healthways exercise and healthy eating programme for people of all ages.

In addition the Council has received the Scottish Executive Award for Delivering Excellence, for its pioneering heritage archive and website Am Baile.

North Lanarkshire, Glasgow City, and Dumfries and Galloway Councils each received one COSLA award. In addition the Best Team Award went to Strathclyde Police, while the Chairman's Award went to South Lanarkshire Council.

The Highland Council Convener Councillor Alison Magee was delighted to hear that the three Council short-listed teams had all won awards.

She said: "Winning three of the eight awards is remarkable and represents an outstanding success for the Council. The three projects highlight the high quality of service that is evident across the Council. Everyone involved deserves great credit for their skill, enthusiasm and commitment."

The Council runs its own Quality Awards annually to recognise achievement and encourage improvement and the teams won at a local level before being presented to the national awards.

The winners were announced at a ceremony on Wednesday night in the Bishopbriggs Leisuredome, East Dunbartonshire hosted by Jackie Bird. This year the contest attracted over 130 entries from councils throughout Scotland.