Why sponsor an MJ Award? Of course, to begin with, we want to promote our brand and services to those who read The MJ. Cratus has been supporting councils with our reviews of planning, communications, strategic leadership and governance for the last five years, supported by our associates who include Dame Mary Ney, Steve Quartermain, Ian Hudspeth and Brendon Walsh. We have also supported advocacy campaigns for Hounslow LBC (Aviation Communities Conference) and Barking & Dagenham LBC (A13 Regeneration).

Sponsors also want to give something back to the sector they serve. Alongside the Chamberlain Lecture, which we first presented in 2018 with Lord Heseletine, then the following year with Lord Kerslake, and last year with Bristol Mayor Marvin Rees, this is an opportunity for us to celebrate excellence in local government. It is for those reasons we at Cratus were delighted to sponsor The MJ Award for Community Heroes.

Our experience as sponsors was to be even more rewarding than we could have anticipated.

After months of local authorities supporting their communities during the COVID-19 pandemic, we knew that amazing acts of selfless professionalism had been evident across the nation.

The MJ asked me to write about being a sponsor, but I wanted to know what the award meant to the winning team and what bearing it had on their work since winning the award. So I arranged a video conferencing call with assistant director (information, customers and communities) John Rooney and public health specialist Dianne Gardner from Rochdale MBC to find out what it meant to them to be an award-winning team.

John grinned and told me he had met some resistance from the team when he suggested they should submit their work for consideration. The team didn't see what it would achieve, and surely they were doing the same as everyone else? Then there was the time needed to write the submission.

John persuaded Dianne and her colleagues that it was a good idea, and so he had a great sense of pride when he heard the result announced.

Dianne, who had also been reluctant to enter at first, was elated by winning: ‘Rochdale doesn't shout about its work, and then we won and became an "award-winning team"!'

There was a real sense of shock that they had won. At the awards they had their elected members with them, and their collective achievements during the dark months of the COVID-19 pandemic soon became apparent to everyone.

Rochdale has been working towards embedding closer working relationships with their strategic partners and community groups. In the lead-up to 2020 they had created new frameworks for working together, so when 23 March 2020 hit, they were in a good position to test these new relationships.

With their elected members and stakeholders, they set about becoming almost ‘anti-heroes' – by helping to empower the people of Rochdale to solve their own communities' needs. This new working style was tested to the hilt but it has worked, and worked well.

The enforced use of Teams and Zoom has brought a degree of equality to those taking part in meetings; now everyone was on the same screen and in no particular order. During the lockdowns, trust grew between the council, their partners, and the community groups they stood alongside. It could have taken years to build the same trust but the pandemic fast-tracked that essential ingredient.

I asked if there had been pressure to revert to how things had been done before the pandemic. The award, they told me, had helped to validate this new way of empowering the community. It led to changes in the structures of teams, the continuation of virtual meetings where practical, and more community support for the work of the authority, which continues to this day.

What I did love to hear was that the first thing they did after winning was to write to those they worked with – councillors, community champions, local heroes, and strategic partners – to thank them all for their contributions during the pandemic, and their part in the Award.

You may not be surprised to know that Cratus has decided to sponsor the same award this year.

I do encourage councils to participate; we appreciate that it takes time to prepare your submissions, but we all too often fail to celebrate the amazing work in local government. In order to shine a light on the achievements within the sector, we need to hear about them in the first place! Please do consider entering The MJ Achievement Awards this year.

Nick Kilby is chief executive of Cratus

@CratusComm

To enter this category for The MJ Achievement Awards 2022, visit: awards.themj.co.uk

Closing date has been extended to 4 February 2022