Minutes:
The Chair of the Council formally welcomed Councillor Greg Sheldon to his first meeting of the Council, following his election at the By-election for the Heavitree and Whipton Barton Division held on 24th October 2019.
First, the Chair congratulated Loddiswell primary school who had won a prestigious national award for sustainability. The building had been commended by Spaces, the Society for Public Architecture, Construction, Engineering and Surveying due to its zero rating for carbon emissions, even when in use. The large number of innovative and sustainable concepts in the project impressed all the judges.
Second, the Chair paid tribute to Devon, Somerset and Torbay Trading Standards Service who had been shortlisted for the 2020 LGC Awards in the ‘Best Service Delivery Model’ category. The joint service model was initially commissioned to deliver excellent services to protect consumers and support businesses at a time of diminishing resources, but had gone from strength to strength with Torbay Council joining in 2017 and following that merging with the Council’s Economic Development team to streamline provision of both regulatory support as well as access to a wide range of general business support and grant programmes.
The LGC reported a record number of entries this year, so to be shortlisted was a remarkable achievement.
The Chair congratulated both Loddiswell School and Trading Standards for their achievements.
In addition, he paid tribute to Rachael Smaldon, one of the Council’s Workforce Development Advisors, who had won the Learning Pool Rising Star Award at the Learning Pool awards (Learning Pool being the company who provided the Council’s DeL platform). This award had come hot on the heels of the Council’s win at the recent South West National Apprenticeship Awards, attended by Gemma Vine and Tracey Mills who had gone to the national awards in London on 27th November 2019. Whilst the Council did not win this time at the national event, there was some exceptionally stiff competition.
Hot of the press was that Devon had scooped a hoard of gold and silver awards at this year’s Social Worker of the Year Awards ceremony. The Family Group Conferencing Plus team, including Lifelong Links, had taken the Gold award for Team of the Year, Children’s Services. The West Devon Community Health and Social Care team took Silver for Team of the Year and the Devon Prison’s Adult Social Care team also took the Silver award for the Creative and Innovative Social Work Practice category. The prestigious awards ceremony was held in London on 29 November 2019 and was organised by the Social Work Awards charity, aiming to improve public awareness and understanding of social work by showing the positive impact of social workers in the wide range of roles they undertook.
The Council also congratulated John Jackson, from Exmouth and the rest of the 4 Man Bobsleigh team. They had participated in the 2014 Winter Olympic Games in Sochi, Russia and had come 5th. However, the teams that finished both 1st and 4th, had since been disqualified meaning a bronze Olympic medal had been awarded. The team had been presented with their medal by HRH Princess Anne at the Team GB ball in London on the 21 November 2019.