Congratulations to 2012 LG Challenge champion, Hannah Rees

Since January, the top rising stars in local government have been battling it out to be crowned champion of the CapacityGRID sponsored 2012 Local Government Challenge and we are pleased to announce that the winner is Hannah Rees, Communications Manager at Cornwall Council. Hannah was presented with a career-enhancing scholarship worth up to £10,000 from the Bruce Lockhart Programme at the LGA annual conference last week.

Otherwise known as 'The Apprentice for local government,’ the Local Government Challenge tasks candidates with tough real life scenarios set by councils, being designed to give staff with the drive to reach the top, the opportunity to demonstrate their individual and team working skills.

At the 2012 LGA annual conference, the four 2012 Local Government Challenge finalists were asked to give a presentation and panel interview in front of a group of judges. Hannah Rees identified that to save money, councils would need to work differently by joining up services, rationalising public sector assets and using more private sector partners. She described that the most important skills for a local authority chief executive in 2012 was ‘ tenacity, courage and resilience.’

Liberata’s Chief Executive, Dermot Joyce, who was part of the judging panel said: ‘I would like to congratulate Hannah Rees for not being afraid to think differently and practise real innovation. At Liberata we take innovation very seriously and see CapacityGRID as a way of building better public services for the UK. CapacityGRID is committed to sponsoring and helping promote the hidden potential and talent that I know exists within local government.”

CapacityGRID, the main sponsor of the Local Government Challenge is significantly reshaping the market place for public sector BPO and support services and is one of local government’s fastest growing and most innovative networks. We now have over 45 clients connected to the grid and membership continues to grow each month. Find out more: www.capacitygrid.com.

You can watch episodes of the Local Government Challenge on CapacityGRID’s website: http://www.capacitygrid.com/lgc.