East AYRSHIRE Council celebrated a double success at the 2020 IESE UK Public Sector Transformation Awards last week.

The top gold award went to the Education and ICT teams who collaborated to design and create a unique educational attainment tracking system. Gordon Pearson and Stephen Gormanley, who have led the design, development and implementation of the product, represented the teams at the awards ceremony in London to receive the award.

The Council’s determination to improve educational outcomes for young people who live in the most deprived parts of East Ayrshire relies on the availability of accurate real-time and relevant performance information to measure individual pupil attainment and identify where progress is good and where more support is needed.

Vibrant Communities and Catering Services were silver winners of the Community Focus Award for the Dignified Food initiative. The award recognises initiatives that help invigorate the local community by creating greater resilience, better life chances and less dependency on public services.

The Dignified Food programme was launched in 2017. The Council and partners work collaboratively to help children, families and communities access nutritional and quality food. Over the last two years, almost 40,000 lunches have been provided. The programme’s unique ethos has helped target food provision in the areas of greatest need, to ensure that no-one in EA goes hungry.

Councillor Gordon Jenkins, Cabinet representative for Management and Resources, said: “Huge congratulations to both of these teams. These awards attract thousands of submissions from Councils across the UK, all keen to share best practice and experiences of new ways of working, and to bring home two of the top accolades is outstanding!

“Both of these initiatives bring much needed benefits to some of our most vulnerable communities.

“Our attainment tracker ensures that our Education provision continues to give all our people access to opportunities to equip them with skills and abilities to help them in future years.

“Our Dignified Food initiative is growing from strength to strength.”