News From Creating Excellence: Top National Award Scooped by South West Regional Compact Partners

The winners of this year's Compact Awards were announced on Wednesday 5 November 2008 at an awards ceremony in London hosted by Sir Bert Massie CBE, the Commissioner for the Compact, who said:

"I would like to congratulate the South West Regional Compact Partners for winning the Compact Award for Excellence at a Regional Level. The quality of entrants for this year's awards was extremely high and the judging panel was very impressed with the level of commitment to the Compact.  All of our finalists demonstrate how the Compact can be a living document that influences action and encourages both sectors to work together to improve and enhance the services and support they offer to the public."

Roger Haworth, Policy and Sector Development Officer from South West Forum the regional voice of the voluntary and community sector said:

"This award is a wonderful recognition of the work we have done in the South West to build better relationships between the public sector and the voluntary and community sector. The South West Regional Compact signed in 2004 was the first ever regional Compact. Since then the regional partners have worked together to improve the quality of life for everyone in the region. However the current economic and environmental difficulties make the need for effective partnership working even more urgent and we must not become complacent."

Nigel Williams, the Partnership Manager of the South West Regional Development Agency was equally delighted with winning the award

"I'm very proud as an individual, as a representative of the Agency and the Regional Compact Partners, that the shared principles and values we recognised in the Regional Compact in 2004, are still shared today; this award marks our collective commitment from the past, but I believe it also sets a high standard for us to aspire to in the future."

Local South West Compact groups were also well represented at the awards, with Gloucestershire Compact Group receiving a Compact Excellence Award as a finalist in the Local Compact of the Year 2008 and Devon Compact Group awarded a Highly Commended Certificate in the same category.

South West organisations even got a look in nationally, with the Compact Award for Excellence at a National Level collected by the Department of Health Third Sector Funding and Investment Review Project whose delegation at the award ceremony included Stephen Woollett, South West Forum Chief Executive.

Organised by the Commission for the Compact in partnership with Compact Voice and the Office of the Third Sector, the five award categories include Compact Champion of the Year, Local Compact of the Year, the Regional and National Excellence Awards, and a Commissioner's Award, given in recognition of exceptional achievement.

The awards ceremony forms part of Compact Week, which takes place from 1 to 8 November 2008.  Through a week-long programme of events, media activity and engagement opportunities across England, this national awareness week aims to promote the Compact and engage national Government bodies, regional bodies, local authorities and other public sector partners who have Local and Regional Compacts.

For more information about all the events and activities taking place during Compact Week, please visit:   www.thecompact.org.uk/compactweek

The South West Regional Compact partner organisations are:

Black South West Network, Citizens Advice (South Area), Creating Excellence, Equality South West, faithnetsouthwest, Government Office for the South West, Jobcentre Plus (South West Region), National Offender Management Service (SW Regional Manager's Office), Natural England, South West Ambulance Service NHS Trust, South West Forum, South West Councils, South West of England Regional Development Agency, South West Regional Assembly and SWAN - The South West ACRE Network. 

The Compact is the 10-year-old agreement which sets out shared commitments and guidelines for working between government and the voluntary and community sector and these awards recognise the excellent partnership working taking place at a local regional and national level.