Department of Social Protection wins two Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards
- Published on: 7 December 2016
- Last updated on: 21 October 2019
The Department of Social Protection has won two awards at the Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards Ceremony which took place yesterday evening, 6 December at the Royal Hospital, Kilmainham. The department won awards for Engagement and Innovation – Results Focused Partnership (in the category of Leading Civil Service Renewal) and MyGovID – SAFE (in the category of World Class Civil Service).
Secretary General of the department, Niamh O’Donoghue, said:
“I am delighted to announce that the Department of Social Protection has won two awards at the Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards held in Dublin last night, for project Engagement and Innovation: Results Focused Partnership and MyGovID: SAFE. I want to want to warmly congratulate both our shortlisted and winning project teams for all of their hard work on these ground breaking public service projects. Our success at the awards reflects the talent and commitment of the staff within our department. The Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards celebrate the many innovative projects out by civil servants, throughout the country and are highly competitive; so it is a huge honour to come away with two awards. Well done to all involved."
The Engagement and Innovation initiative seeks to make the best use of the department’s staff's experience and expertise to solve problems and improve services. Change projects under the Engagement and Innovation framework are time bound, results focused and are driven by leadership teams made up of all grades across the department. A particular feature of the initiative is its collaborative structure which encourages further engagement through open and inclusive discussion by all team members.
The SAFE project provides an identity authentication standard which delivers the Public Services Card and the MyGovID online identity and access management service. The department aims to have issued 3 million Public Services Cards to public services users aged 16 and over to provide single, secure card based access to all public services by the end of 2017. There are currently over 2.3 million Public Services Cards issued to date.
There were 30 shortlisted Civil Service Excellence and Innovation Awards nominations with just one winner in each of 10 categories. A further 8 nominations were highly commended and included amongst these was the department's joint project with Department of Defence - 'DF ESS Pilot Programme'. The department was also nominated for the Paternity Benefit Delivery Project (in the category of Digital Excellence).
ENDS