Two Council Teams shortlisted for UK awards

Two of Pembrokeshire County Council’s teams have been shortlisted for the prestigious LGC Awards later this year.  

The awards celebrate the most exceptional local government talent and is open to over 1,500 councils across the UK.

The Council’s Supported Employment Programme is one of only eight teams shortlisted in the Diversity and Inclusion category.

The award recognises how the County Council has developed a diverse and inclusive work culture across a number of areas, in particular through social care, Norman Industries and Scolton Manor and partner organisations.

From employing 25 people with disability in 2017, today the Council employs over 65 people with disability in the supported employment programme.

Programme Manager Karen Davies said; “In 2018, Pembrokeshire County Council became the only council in Wales to be a Disability Confident Leader and the work has continued to improve diversity and inclusion in the workplace ever since.

“Our work to provide supported employment is founded on the belief that someone’s impairment or difference is not the barrier to having a job – we can remove the barriers that society puts in the way of someone having a job.”

The programme combines a number of tried and tested approaches to create support that meets the unique needs of Pembrokeshire.

“The Supported Employment Programme is a partnership between a number of projects, teams and work streams,” said Karen.

“Our Employability Pembrokeshire projects (Workways+, Experience 4 Industries and Tackling in Work Poverty) support people as they start their journey and help identify any barriers and find solutions to overcome them.

“Norman Industries and its social enterprise projects help people to gain work experience and supported employment in a wide range of customer facing services. The programme works with a number of council services and departments to provide work opportunities– from the café in Milford Haven Leisure Centre to the social care business unit and the farm shop at Scolton Manor.”

The second team to be shortlisted for a LGC award is Pembrokeshire County Council’s Intermediate Care Team.

Pembrokeshire ICT is uniquely a partnership between health, social care and third sector. It provides a short term service to support individuals to maintain their independence, preventing hospital admission and facilitating hospital discharge.

“Intermediate care was ‘fast-tracked’ to become operational at the start of the pandemic,” said Linda Tucker, Intermediate Care Manager for the Council.

“Despite staff changes, IT problems, and having to ‘learn on our feet’, we have successfully delivered a service which has seen referrals increase from 39 to 309 a month.

“At the same time, we have maintained a two hour response time of over 80%, preventing 133 hospital admissions, facilitating 368 discharges and enabling 528 individuals to remain in their home.

“As well as this, the service has been at the forefront of innovating and developing new ideas, such as successfully piloting work on the discharge 2 assess pathways, their work on which attracted extra funding. We are also regional leads on initiatives such as trusted assessor.”

LGC say that to be on the awards shortlist, ‘entrants demonstrated outstanding practice as well as cutting-edge innovations and the judges were very impressed with the high standard’.

Cllr Tessa Hodgson, Pembrokeshire’s Cabinet Member for Social Care, said; “We know that we have some amazing talent in our teams here in Pembrokeshire and this is well deserved recognition for the fantastic work that is being done. To achieve two shortlists for these prestigious awards is an outstanding achievement.”

Main picture above: Hannah Johns (left), one of the many people on Pembrokeshire’s Supported Employment Programme, with Sue Rivett, Participant Support.

Pictured above are some of the members of the Intermediate Care Team.