For the second year in a row, Apolitical is proud to celebrate innovative, groundbreaking teams that get the job done through our Global 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.

This year, we recognised teams in eight different categories, to reflect the huge breadth of work public servants do across governments, from tackling climate change to promoting equality to doing the behind the scenes work that keeps governments running.

After receiving hundreds of nominations from all over the world, a team of judges at Apolitical selected a shortlist of 62 finalists across the eight categories. Apolitical’s members were then given the chance to vote for the team they thought had the biggest impact in their category. Thousands voted and selected the following teams for recognition of their outstanding work.

Category: Citizen-Centred Innovation

This award celebrates teams with a focus on innovative policy putting citizens’ needs at the heart of their work.

The Winner: Innovation Lab (iLab), Access to Information (a2i), Bangladesh

The Innovation Lab (iLab) of Access to Information (a2i) a2i is a flagship government innovation project run by the Prime Minister’s Office of Bangladesh with support from UNDP and USAID. It connects social innovators to the skills and finances necessary to make them a reality, supporting citizens’ ideas that have wide societal benefits. For example, they launched EPIC, the Emergency Portable Infant Incubator, which was developed to address infant mortality in rural Bangladesh. The portable incubators are equipped with battery and solar-powered heating and ventilation systems to optimise infant life support, thus allowing infants’ lives to be saved even in power outages.

The Runner-up: The User Centred Policy Design Team, UK

Set up in 2016, the User Centred Policy Design (UCPD) team of the Ministry of Justice (UK) works with policymakers and operational teams to help them become more user focused, test ideas early, and make use of digital and design methods to solve complex problems for people in crisis. UCPD provides hands-on expertise and support, as well as training and tools for civil servants to shift the culture and mindset to one that is more open and instinctively thinks first about user needs when making decisions. They were the first government department in the UK to pioneer the approach of in-house policy design teams.

The ~Boring~ Engine Room Award

This award recognises that the teams tackling the most pressing issues don’t always have the flashiest titles. Cleaning spreadsheets, updating systems, or digitising documents may not be the most glamorous-sounding work, but it’s absolutely essential – these are the teams that get the job done.

The Winner: The Canadian Food Inspection Agency, Canada

In January 2019, the Canadian Food Inspection Agency introduced the Safe Food for Canadians Regulations (SFCR). SFCR represented the largest regulations reform initiative in the country’s history. New innovations included outcome-based regulations, which focus on the result of the regulation rather than what food businesses must do to achieve it, and the introduction of an online library of over 300 guidance documents to help businesses interpret the new regulations in everyday scenarios.

The Runner-up: Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District, USA

The Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District was recognised for taking an innovative approach to reducing water pollution from sewer overflows by issuing a Water Drop Alert™ when large storms and heavy rains threaten the area. The MMSD has been recognised as the “gold standard” in sanitation, as Milwaukee now averages only 2.4 combined sewer overflows a year, due to a massive underground tunnel, green infrastructure, and flood-control measures.

Category: Climate Champions

This award recognises teams that are tackling the climate crisis head-on, by fighting for an innovative new policy, implementing a great climate programme or developing a new internal system helping other public servants go green.

The Winner: Collective for Climate Action (previously Climate Change Collective), DEFRA, UK

The Collective for Climate Action at the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) has undertaken a number of initiatives aimed at combating climate change from the heart of the UK government. These include a Teach-In programme, which provides a space where staff can have an open discussion about climate change science, and a Climate Café facilitator training scheme, which has enabled 25 facilitators at 6 sites to run Climate Cafés. They are also in the process of developing tools to help staff across the board determine how they can consider climate change in their work.

The Runner-up: DCMS Green Network, UK

The Department for Digital, Culture, Media & Sport (DCMS) Green Network, launched in January 2019, exists to encourage and enable DCMS staff to act in a more environmentally sustainable way, at work as well as at home. They also seek ways to reduce the environmental footprint of the department as a whole, through their policies, ethos and behaviour. They were the first government department to join the Zero Waste Week campaign this year, and have set up a cross-Whitehall Green Forum which pulls together the leaders of existing Green Networks across government departments.

Category: Digitising Public Services

This award is to celebrate teams that are helping bring governments into the twenty-first century by digitising their services.

The Winner: Working Group for Digital Transformation, Brazil

Brazil saw astonishing digital transformation in 2019 – in the first six months of 2019, the Brazilian government transformed 311 public services by making them 100% digital. The Working Group for Digital Transformation is an initiative from the National Council of Secretaries of Public Administration in Brazil (CONSAD), along with the Brazilian Association of Public Information, Communication and Technology entities from the states. The Working Group has helped develop a common strategy for the development of states’ digital transformation agendas and projects.

The Runner-up: ‘333,’ Access 2 Information (A2I), Bangladesh

An initiative created by Bangladesh Access to Information (a2i), ‘333’ is a central helpline that can be used to access government information, services, and to report complaints or social issues. The call centre can be contacted for information about government offices and how to receive public services, as well as to report cases of child marriage or illegal drug distribution. Since its launch in April 2018, over 3.5 million citizens have used the helpline to access information.

Category: Championing Equality

This award recognises teams or departments that are prioritising equality in their work, either in their policy development or in internal efforts.

The Winner: The City of Buenos Aires Gender Equality Team, Argentina

The City of Buenos Aires Gender Equality Team has embarked on an ambitious project to systematically collect gender dis-aggregated data on the economic activities of its citizens. The project aims to close the statistical gap and use this new data to support better policy design, implementation and assessment, and service delivery. It’s the first Gender Indicator System of its kind in the country, which was used for the baseline, diagnosis and conceptual framework to design the Gender Equality Strategy for Buenos Aires.

The Runner-up: Windrush Generations Programme, Hackney Council, UK

Hackney Council has been a vocal supporter of the Windrush generations and families, including being the first council to organise an annual celebration of Windrush day. Windrush Generations was an events programme run by Hackney Council during the summer, involving the whole community. The aim of the programme was to connect isolated older people with each other and with council services. The event celebrated and commemorated Hackney’s Windrush generation and enabled the council to forge a new relationship with Black British older people.

Category: Evidence-Based Policy

This award celebrates teams or departments at the forefront of developing evidence-based policy, of any kind.

The Winner: UNDP Accelerator Labs Network

The Accelerator Labs are UNDP’s new way of working in development. Together with their core partners, the State of Qatar and the Federal Republic of Germany, 60 labs serving 78 countries will work together with national and global partners to find radically new approaches that fit the complexity of current development challenges.The labs aim to transform government approaches and introduce new services, backed by evidence and practice, by accelerating the testing and dissemination of solutions within and across countries.

The Runner-up: MineduLab, Peru

MineduLAB is an innovation lab for education policy housed within the Ministry of Education (Minedu) and the Office of Strategic Monitoring and Evaluation (OSEE) in the government of Peru. The lab pilots and evaluates the effectiveness of innovations, with the ultimate goal of allowing the Ministry to use evidence to improve children’s learning throughout the country. Among the innovations of MineduLAB is “Expand your mind” which helped students develop a growth mindset from an early age, and an SMS campaign that helped schools use the funds available to them for the maintenance and improvement of infrastructure.

Category: Doing More with Less

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

The Winner: ProZorro, 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 on a budget of only US$100,000 but has generated more than US$500 million in revenue.

The Runner-up: City Performance Lean Program, USA

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 done better. This initiative has helped to cut months off time-to-hire at the Public Utilities Commission without employing new staff or deploying new technology.

Category: New Ways of Working

Traditional office culture is on the decline – and on the rise are trailblazing ways to make work more flexible, agile and supportive. This award celebrates teams that are re-thinking traditional structures and encouraging their members to learn and work in new and exciting ways.

The Winner: Local Digital Collaboration Unit, UK

The Local Digital Collaboration Unit is a team based within the Ministry of Housing, Communities & Local Government (MHCLG), set up in 2018 to support the ‘Local Digital’ movement. The team convened 45 public sector organisations to co-author the Local Digital Declaration. Published in July 2018, 205 local authorities in the UK have now signed the declaration and committed to working towards its principles. The team has taken the innovative approach of incentivising collaboration through the Local Digital Fund, where a minimum of 3 local government councils per project come together to understand and address common problems of service provision. So far, 100 distinct councils have risen to the challenge and are working together to solve complex challenges.

The Runner-up: Digitalización y Adopción Digital, División de Gobierno Digital, Segpres, Chile

The Digitalización y Adopción Digital team has the mission of complying with the new legal mandate of the Ministry General Secretariat of the Presidency (SEGPRES), the intersectoral coordination and advice to the State Administration bodies in the strategic use of digital technologies. In addition to developing and operating platforms for citizens to access public services, they provide advice and support to public institutions in the design of services and digital transformation.

Congratulations to our winners, runners up, and everyone who took part in this year’s award. We hope 2020 brings you further success.