Transcript
Nominating yourself or your team for a Civil Service Award is an excellent idea. I think it forces you to think about the work you’ve been doing and just the process of filling out the nomination form means you really need to think carefully about what you’re achieving, what outcome you want to deliver. But of course if you are then shortlisted or even are lucky enough to win an award, that brings a real sense of achievement and pride to the team.
We were lucky enough to win the award for best communications campaign in 2014 and that had a number of benefits. As a communications professional, it meant I became better known within the Government Communications Network. For the people who were involved in the campaign, and it was members of the communications team and our policy team, there was a real sense of pride and achievement. Thirdly, it was good for the Food Standards Agency as a whole. We’re a much smaller department than many others and I think it showed that there’s some excellent work taking place in the smaller departments as much as there is in the bigger departments of government.