Guardian Public Services Awards 2011 Open for Entries

The 2011 Guardian Public Services Awards in partnership with Hays, launch today, and are now open for entries. Now in their eighth year, the Awards are for all organisations involved in commissioning or delivering innovative public services, whether they sit in the public, private or voluntary sectors.

David Brindle, the Guardian's Public Services Editor, said:

"It's easy to get morose about prospects for our public services, such is the scale and pace of the austerity programme being forced upon them.

And it's true that some excellent and vitally important services are being cut, often through poor decision-making. But beneath the surface, the reality is that countless inspiring and innovative services continue to flourish. Our varied awards aim to showcase that, and never before has excellence of contribution, by team or individual, been more worth celebrating.”

The awards fall into three main sections:

Service Delivery

Children & young people

Complex needs

Carers, families & communities

Care of older people

Housing & regeneration

Transport & mobility

Innovation and Progress

Sustainability

Transformation

Customer service

Partnership working

Diversity & equality

Skills development

The Special Awards are:

The Citizenship & volunteering award

The Guardian Public Servant of the Year award

The overall winner

Last year's winning projects included Britain’s greenest hospital in Manchester, a mobile youth club in Sunderland that has had a dramatic effect on anti-social behaviour, and a scheme in Edinburgh that trains housing staff in high-rise blocks to look out for residents who may be depressed or becoming suicidal.

Full details of the Awards will appear in Society Guardian on Wednesday 18 May. The closing date for applications is 15 July 2011. The winners will be announced in November at an awards ceremony in central London. Info: http://www.guardian.co.uk/publicservicesawards.

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