Council's Cleaning Team Receive National Excellence Award

13th February 2012

The Highland Council's Education, Culture and Sport Cleaning Service have received a Performance Network Award for the Most Improved Performer in the Association of Public Services 2011 Excellence Awards.

The ECS cleaning service, which employs 850 people, provides a daily building cleaning service to 367 of the Council's establishments including nurseries, schools, offices, libraries, community centres and museums.

Each year the Service takes part in a benchmark exercise with other local authority services across the rest of the UK and Ireland to examine how frontline government services are getting delivered.

The 2011 assessment highlighted that the Highland team performed particularly strongly in productivity, reducing staff absences, quality assurance, staff consultation and people management.

Chairman of the ECS Committee praised the staff for all their hard work. He said: "There are many challenges for service delivery within the Highlands and our cleaning service is continually looking at ways improvements can be made within the available resources. A big importance is placed on ensuring staff receive the right training and support. We have also introduced Service Level Agreements for all the establishments and have effective measures set up to monitor performance. To receive the national award for the most improved performance is a huge credit to the hard work of everyone involved and highlights our commitment to providing a top class service."

This award follows on from The Highland Council's recent success at the 2011 Loo of the Year Awards when the authority won 8 National Category Awards, 3 National Awards, 2 National Attendance Awards, 2 UK Trophy Awards and 1 Stand of Excellence Award.

PHOTO
Cllr Bill Fernie (far right) is pictured presenting the national certificate and trophy to (front row L to R) Catering & Cleaning Manager Norma Murray; Cleaning Officer (Ross-shire) Kaye Low and Cleaning Manager Evelyn Miller. (back row L to R) Cleaning Officers; Catriona McAllister (Lochaber), Wendy Cameron (Caithness, Sutherland and Easter Ross); Gary Moffat and Susan Carter (Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey)