sponsored by Best Companies
Recognising an individual in local or central government who has demonstrated outstanding achievements in communications, both internally and externally. Entries are accepted through nomination.

2011 Winner: Tina Chawner, Head of Change and IT Communications, HMRC
Tina Chawner became Head of HMRC’s IT Communications in 2008, at an early stage in her career. Dealing with controversial and sensitive campaigns, she has tirelessly directed her teams across disciplines towards encouraging senior leaders to accept their responsibilities as communicators, and driving a move to a more open culture. Prior to her appointment, the 1,300 people working in the IT department felt there were too many channels, that messages were inconsistent and had a low opinion of leadership communications. Within 12 months Tina made huge progress resolving these issues by centralising the communications resource to form a small, professionally trained team.
In October 2010 Tina’s role expanded to encompass all departmental communication about change as part of the biggest Change Programme in HMRC’s history.

Commended: Ian Ratcliffe, Stockport City Council
A previous Government Communicator of the Year winner, Ian Ratcliffe has been head of communications at Stockport since 2002. With over 20 years’ experience in public relations and marketing, Ian’s work demonstrates a strong focus on effective communications with clear, tangible outcomes. He has built a team at Stockport that has won dozens of regional and national awards, reinforcing its reputation as one of the UK’s most creative and results-focused communications teams. He continues to head up innovative and thought provoking campaigns that achieve their objectives cost effectively, and regularly speaks at best practice seminars.

Commended: Rod Cooke, Director of Communications, Derbyshire County Council
Rod Cook is a regular speaker at LGComms events, sharing best practice on a range of communications topics. As head of communications at Derbyshire County Council, he has helped his team pick up the top Communicators of the Year accolade at this year’s IPR Local Government Group Excellence Awards. Last year, Derbyshire County Council rebranded its youth forum, set up a dedicated website, held competitions, and encouraged the youth of Derbyshire to vote by text message on issues like crime. The campaign helped the council to increase voting through the forum from 200 in 2002 to more than 5,000 this year.

Commended: Helena Bryan, Aylesbury Vale District Council
Responsible for a broad range of award-winning communications at Aylesbury Vale District Council, Helena Bryant has been working to a very high standard for many years. She has developed and implemented all of AVDC’s online communications. Since 2007 Helena’s work has been well recognised. Her communications campaign for the local elections was shortlisted for the PR Week awards in 2007, and in 2010 the texting service won a Good Communications Mobile Technology award. The AVDC intranet was also highly commended in the LG Communications Reputation Awards.