Why this matters

For the second year in a row, Apolitical will be celebrating innovative, groundbreaking teams that get the job done through our Public Service Team of the Year Awards. Though their work often goes unnoticed, we know that teams are at the heart of every effective government and are working hard every day to make people’s lives better.

We know that public servants are often being told to maximise their team or department’s impact, while minimising the amount of resources they receive. This award is to recognise the teams that are doing more with less – developing efficient policy solutions that effectively tackle pressing issues.

How to Vote

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How we selected the finalists

Our team received hundreds of nominations from teams all over the world. We then reviewed each nomination individually, and a panel of judges at Apolitical decided on a shortlist of teams for each category.

North West Department of Rural, Environment and Agricultural Development NIPAS South Africa

The North West Department of Rural, Environment and Agricultural Development has rolled out a new online application system called “NIPAS”. This system has made it much easier for individuals and companies to apply for biodiversity permits by streamlining the process onto one platform. People are now able to apply online for permits, talk directly with those handling their application using a chatbox, keep track of their application in a dashboard, and make payments online. Most permits cost only R50.00, and the system makes it easy to upload proof of payment and all relevant supporting documentation, making it cost-effective for both applicants and the government.

City Performance Lean Program Team, San Francisco

The City Performance Lean Program in San Francisco trains public servants to identify simple, low- or no-cost solutions that improve the daily lives of staff and citizens by using lean methodology. The team also coaches executives and managers to treat their staff as problem-solvers and create a culture of continuous improvement by bringing front-line staff face-to-face with strategic performance measures in daily huddles and then soliciting their feedback about what can be better. This initiative has helped to cut months off time-to-hire at the Public Utilities Commission without hiring new staff or deploying new technology.

HMRC’s Enhanced Payments Journey Team, UK

HMRC’s Enhanced Payments Journey team have completely changed how people can pay HMRC, using customer research and good digital design to make paying HMRC much easier and clearer. The project also reduced costs by persuading customers to shift from expensive card payments to HMRC’s inexpensive preferred payment methods. The Enhanced Payment Journey (EPJ) project has increased customer satisfaction by 27.5% and will save HMRC more than £3 million in transaction costs.

ProZorro and ProZorro.Sale, Ukraine

ProZorro is a fully online public procurement platform and a collaboration environment that ensures open access to public procurement in Ukraine. It has been globally recognized as one of the most innovative public procurement systems delivering government services in a transparent, effective, fair and low-cost way. The launch of ProZorro was followed by the launch of ProZorro.Sale, a transparent e-auction system which is used to sell and lease assets from failed banks, as well as other government national and sub-national agencies and some commercial firms. ProZorro.Sale was developed by a small team and only $100,000 but has generated more than US$500 million in revenue.

City of West Hollywood Innovation Division

The City of West Hollywood Innovation Division recently received the American Planning Association Technology Division’s Smart Cities Award for the “WeHo Smart City” Strategic Plan. The Division only has 2 full time employees and 1 intern, but their comprehensive Smart City Strategic Plan implemented groundbreaking technology initiatives as well as working on lean process improvement inside City Hall. These initiatives covered data analytics, feedback tools, public safety, infrastructure backups and on-demand transit. By implementing pilot project models, the team is able to show proof of concept and work with technology vendors on a small budget to test new solutions and iterate quickly.

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