British Nuclear Group, Cumbria County Council and Allerdale Borough Council all scooped Gold last night at the North West Chartered Institute of Public Relations (CIPR) Pride awards.
Demonstrating the high standard of public relations programmes delivered in the County the organisations collected their top honours at a ceremony held at the Renaissance Hotel in Manchester.
British Nuclear Group collected the Gold award in the Relationship Management Programme category which looks for outstanding examples of how stakeholder management can be used to address complicated issues. Cumbria County Council won Gold in the Public Sector Programme category while Allerdale Borough Council struck Gold in the Internal Communications Strategy category.
British Nuclear Group’s entry, ‘Taking the Time to Listen and Act’, highlighted the ground breaking stakeholder engagement work undertaken to address international concern regarding discharges of Technetium 99 from Sellafield.
In awarding Gold, the judges said that the British Nuclear Group entry demonstrated clear objectives and a very structured approach to a highly sensitive issue and that it was a complex campaign that required a high level of planning and research. They added that the team had managed to work a number of complex relationships including government ministers and showed that good relationships need to be nurtured and developed.
Bill Anderton, Head of Sellafield Communications, said: “It’s great to see the talent that we have in public relations within British Nuclear Group being recognised as amongst the best in the North West. This award is a tribute to the vast amounts of hard work and effort put into this campaign both at Sellafield and Daresbury. To be short listed for these awards is an achievement in itself, but to scoop the gold award in the face of stiff opposition from two PR agencies is fantastic.”
Cumbria County Council's School Attendance Matters (SAM) campaign created stories featuring a cartoon cheetah called Sam whose exploits were used to drive home the message that unauthorised absence from school is bad and that school attendance is good for children and improves long-term life chances.
Awarding the campaign a Gold Award CIPR judges said SAM was: "A really lovely concept nicely executed by the team...the character creation was spot on."
Moira Fisher from the county council's communications team, said: "A lot of people put a lot of work into the SAM campaign and we all really believed in the project so we're delighted to have won an award for our efforts."
Allerdale’s Communications team collected the Gold award in the Use of Internal Communications category for the implementation of the Council’s Internal Communications Strategy. The team – Communications and Marketing Manager John Reynolds and Communications and Marketing Officer Helen Murphy – was also nominated in the PR Team of the Year Category.
Last night’s success follows an earlier nomination in the CIPR Local Government Group Excellence in communication Awards at Cardiff in September. On that occasion, Allerdale was nominated in the best use of e-media category for its hosting of the event website for the 5th Masters World Mountain Running Championships in Keswick.
Councillor Jim Musgrave, Leader of Allerdale Borough Council, said: “I’m absolutely delighted. I think we have a superb communications team and they have helped us make major improvements in both our internal and external communications. I am very proud of them.”
John Reynolds, Allerdale’s Communications and Marketing Manager, added: “We were thrilled to pick up the award on what was a particularly good night for Cumbria. We were all up against the very best PR practitioners from the public and private sectors within the north west which goes to prove that a high standard of expertise and professionalism exists within the industry in Cumbria.”
Meanwhile, Cumbria Police picked up a national PR award at the annual conference of the Association of Police Public Relations Officers on Thursday, 10th November. Cumbria Constabulary won the annual award for best media and communications work on a major incident for its handling of the severe flooding in Carlisle and elsewhere in the county in January this year.