Celebrating smarter working success across the public sector
The Government Property Agency recently hosted the fourth Smarter Working Live Awards, celebrating outstanding smarter working across the public sector.
On 21 November 2024 the Government Property Agency hosted the fourth edition of the Smarter Working Live Awards, celebrating outstanding examples of innovation, creativity and dedication to smarter working across the public sector.
Put simply, smarter working empowers us with choices about how, where and when we work. Underpinned by culture, ethos, process and technology, smarter working is about optimising ways of working and enhancing working environments to generate greater productivity, simplify processes and realise cost savings through efficiencies.
The awards received a significant number of nominations across 15 categories, with some truly outstanding entries. Congratulations to all of the finalists and winners!
The winners
Improving Spaces - Creating a Great Place to Work
Winner: HMP Birmingham in partnership with Aramark for Two Projects for Improving Spaces for Residents and Staff.
Two spaces were designed to encourage a healthy mindset. The garden provides a multipurpose space, featuring a reflection area, communal seating, and raised beds for growing vegetables.
The staff wellbeing centre helps employees reset and refocus with wellbeing check-ups, healthy weight loss sessions and yoga classes.
Future Focused and Sustainable Property
Winner: Kent County Council for Kent Connects and Kent Estates Shared Workspace.
The Shared Workspace project established a reciprocal agreement for partners across Kent to use space in each other’s offices, supporting collaboration, flexible working, and improved efficiency.
The Kent Connects project has numerous benefits, including ensuring secure internet is available at each site, enabling all public sector staff to access their systems and work documents securely.
Innovation as a Service
Winner: West Berkshire Council for Walnut Close.
This project saw local residents and staff volunteer their time and skills to redevelop unused space in a former care home to provide a venue for court-mandated family contact time. The project is an excellent example of improving outcomes for residents, delivering value for money, and tapping into community capacity.
Digital Innovation as a Service
Winner: Royal Air Force (Astra Team) for Project BLUEPRINT.
This project coordinates grassroots innovation, consolidating policies, training materials, training videos, and paperwork examples for the Royal Air Force Police into one mobile-enabled platform. It has boosted staff confidence and ensures a high level of service for people affected by violent crime and security situations.
Harnessing the Value of Data
Winner: University Hospital Dorset for Intelligent Workflows.
University Hospitals Dorset used process mining technology and human-centred design to direct improvements in the outpatient department. The project immediately cut waiting times and delivered productivity gains at a cash equivalent of £7.9 million annually.
Customer Experience
Winner: London Borough of Barking & Dagenham Council for Enhancing Service, Supporting Vulnerable Customers, Promoting Agent Wellbeing
This project saw the implementation of an AI-powered solution to swiftly capture, transcribe, score and report on the hundreds of thousands of calls the Council receives annually. It has helped enhance customer service, improve staff mentoring and identify and support vulnerable callers.
User Experience
Winner: Environment Agency for Nexus Enforcement
The project involved replacing their case management system with a solution tailored to their needs. The judges were impressed with the way Nexus modernises regulation and leverages data analytics to protect the environment.
Smarter Workflows
Winner: BT & Soprano Design with the NHS for Leveraging Conversational AI to Reduce Did Not Attends & Streamline Clinical Pathways
This project involved the development of Patient Concierge, an innovative solution to optimise clinical pathways and improve patient care through advanced conversational AI and automation.
The powerful tool can translate messages and streamline patient communications, cutting DNA rates and saving NHS staff time spent on arranging appointments.
Digital Inclusion
Winner: Norfolk County Council for Tech Skills for Life
This project offers wraparound support to empower less confident or capable residents to engage with technology, offering a social lifeline in the rural area of West Norfolk. Coaches operate in trusted community spaces to help residents gain digital skills and confidence and support them to access devices.
Automation, Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning
Winner: University Hospitals Coventry and Warwickshire NHS Trust for Transforming People Services through digital innovation and automation
This project saw the implementation of People Assist, an AI-powered virtual assistant, to automate HR, resourcing and employment queries and reduce the time to respond to routine process queries. It’s delivered an instant turnaround of queries and advice and turbocharged productivity, supporting a shift to value-added work.
Building Collaborative Communities
Winner: Department Business and Trade for Darlington Economic Campus - Collaboration supporting Policy, Places and People.
The campus brings together nine government departments and fosters community through collaborative spaces, welcome sessions for new employees, an events programme and school and university outreach. It’s helped to break down silos between departments and build a new collaborative community in Tees Valley.
Small-scale - Big Impact
Winner: Buckinghamshire and Somerset Councils for How Copilot 365 I&C Sub-Group Built a Collaborative Community of Practice.
This project brings together 500+ members from across the public sector to share experiences, insights, and lessons learned on AI. The group organises regular webinars and has provided suggestions to Microsoft, all with the shared vision of improving productivity in the public sector.
Putting People First
Winner: Nexus - Tyne and Wear Passenger Transport Executive for Our People.
The organisation has achieved stellar staff survey results thanks to its comprehensive programme of communications, development opportunities, retention initiatives and recognition and reward scheme. Together this has helped to foster an inclusive, sustainable and equitable culture.
Championing Continuous Improvement
Winner: Department for Work and Pensions for Move to Universal Credit.
The project saw around two million households smoothly transition from legacy benefits to Universal Credit, delivering one of the department’s biggest reforms and enabling a modern financial support service. The judges were impressed by the test-and-learn approach to share and scale best practices.
Outstanding Smarter Working Leadership
Winner: HM Revenue and Customs for Transforming the Way We Work Programme.
The programme involved large-scale culture change to truly embed hybrid working. Reporting systems and toolkits helped staff choose the right space, place, tools and technology to deliver for the organisation.
Smarter Working Special Recognition
Winner: Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust
This award celebrates organisations or projects that are taking bold steps and doing something different. They needed to show innovation, imagination and ambition. While at the same time delivering value for money.
The judges were looking for projects that really made a difference, that have positively impacted users or customers, and that had a spark of originality too.
Harrogate and District NHS Foundation Trust has shown outstanding empathy for patients’ lived experiences. They identified that patients often struggled to retain information after day surgical procedures.
The solution was patient-focused and impactful: the project team designed a digital service that included personalised aftercare videos and signposting to rehabilitation content – to name a few. This provided a superior experience for the patient, but in turn empowered them and increased their confidence to self-manage their recovery after day case surgery.
The feedback from patients has shown that less people needed follow up appointments and the process helped them understand their recovery.
### Beyond Smarter Working
Winner: West Berkshire Council
This award encompasses the very best of all categories, where the organisation has gone above and beyond in their smarter working journey and created a long-lasting culture change for their staff and partners and the community they serve.
West Berkshire Council’s project is an inspiring example of place-building, drawing on support from the community to help meet the needs of some of its most vulnerable residents.
Its nomination brought to life what it feels like to be part of the Council, and its team set a clear vision of enhancing the sustainability of the Authority’s services and improving the experience of its residents - by transforming a former care facility on Walnut Close into what is now known as Walnut Tree House.
The passion and tenacity of the project team saw them working tirelessly to redevelop the space as somewhere that can be utilised to facilitate court-mandated family contact time for local families.
Creating the right space to support families with care and safety was evident throughout the nomination. This passion and commitment is reflected in the response from residents utilising the spaces and the community’s buy in and engagement for Walnut House.
The team at the Council has kept the momentum going in delivering for the community it serves. And are now converting more space within Walnut House into temporary accommodation for families facing homelessness.
Join the Smarter Working Community of Practice
The Smarter Working Live Awards and Conference will return in 2025. Join our Smarter Working Community of Practice to be kept informed and take part in regular events and discussions throughout the year. Email gpasmartworkingqueries@gpa.gov.uk to find out more.