Award Categories

• Activities that recognise and respect cultural diversity
• Projects supporting Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and fostering cultural awareness
• Inclusive services leading to community cohesion
• Social connection through community engagement activities or that build community life and cohesion through ongoing engagement programs
• Partnerships and innovative collaborative models.

We are seeking projects of all scales that drive all forms of health across all agesand for all members of the community.

Examples of projects may include butare not limited to:

• Maternal and child health
• Health of children and families beyond maternal and child health
• Positive aging programs
• Public health and safety including food safety
• Mental health and wellbeing
• Fitness and exercise programs
• Collaborative partnerships with community and organisations
• Health and wellbeing education programs improving access to health information.

We are seeking projects that demonstrate leading work to adapt and build resilience to climate impacts. Some examples of projects may include:

• Renewable energy projects
• Community resilience programs
• Nature-based solutions
• Innovation or entrepreneurship capability or investment programs to drive sector engagement in energy and climate resilience product and solutions
• Projects that demonstrate collaboration between council, community and industry
• Council or community emissions reduction projects for instance relating to transport or building upgrades
• Electric vehicle programs and infrastructure (including e-bike and e-scooter).

We are seeking projects and programs that feature systems that harness resources to enable communities, buildings and places that are regenerative. We are looking for examples that are novel or unique. We hope to support the growth of ideas that harness resources to drive towards thriving communities, contributing to a healthy planet.

• Council facilities and amenities (including open spaces and buildings) with circular and regenerative systems
• Programs and places that support resource recovery and transfer
• Community composting initiatives including FOGO projects
• Public spaces and council facilities that harness resources in their design/construction including the use of recycled materials
• Partnerships and collaborative programs that help share knowledge and build capability for regenerative design practices in communities.

This can be an old project that continues to demonstrate value or a new project with clear intent to deliver long term values across many years. Big change takes big time, submit your examples of projects and programs of work that may have started a long time ago and are now creating sustained value for your community.

Examples of projects include:

• Projects that include long time scales to realise impacts, tree planting for example
• Policies and approaches that create a shift in council operations unlocking value for the community
• Examples of community partnerships that are sustained to deliver community outcomes in the future for instance Youth Advisory or Youth Council Programs
• Partnership, investment and innovation programs (either looking back or looking ahead) that will build impact across a long time period.

Collaborations might be among multiple councils, with the community or sector partners. There is no minimum of number of partners, teams or councils for this award – a collaboration between two or 10 stakeholder groups will be equally considered against the criteria.

Examples of this may include:

• Shared service for community members across minimum two or more councils
• Program or project that enables and drives collaboration
• Collaborations between several internal teams at a council that is a new and novel approach to a council service or challenge
• Partnerships with community organisations focussed on a specific community challenge for instances homelessness, food security, emergency preparedness or other.
• New council system or process that invites input from several other councils to drive scalability and bigger impacts.

This may be in pursuit of educating community about a complex topic or be related to standard council communications. Examples of projects may include:

• Events or exhibitions for community designed to inform and engage on a particular topic
• Publications, council media campaigns or new channels that help communities to connect or build understanding about council services
• Codesigned stories with community, or stories created with community data
• Creative and impactful campaigns demonstrating inclusion and accessibility
• Digital storytelling including data visualisations
• Ongoing council storytelling practices that demonstrate innovation
• Partnerships with artists and creative practitioners.

This award acknowledges the significant energies and resources required by local councils to maintain and upgrade council assets, from roads, drains and kerbs to community facilities like recreation centres and resource-recovery stations, street furniture, poles, parks, plants, paths and more. Innovation may be applied to any part of asset management process. Examples of projects include:

• Methods of documenting the condition of assets for accurate asset assessments
• Systems to diagnose and prioritise asset maintenance including using data to predict when maintenance is required in the future
• Processes for asset improvements
• Collaborative asset management leveraging community
• Applications of technology to make maintenance programs more efficient.

We are looking for projects and programs that demonstrate creativity and commitment to community needs in the delivery of relevant and accessible services. Some examples of projects include:

• Applications of new and emerging technology
• Improvements to existing systems to enhance support for community
• Collaborative projects that involve community in shaping services
• Projects that demonstrate innovation in research and testing to improve services and customer experience.

This might be challenge-specific, for instance, extreme weather shelter, broader access and equity issues, housing and accommodation or other (relevant to council services).

Your submissions might include:

• Heat, flood and other emergency shelters, spaces providing resources to community members
• Hubs enabling community connection, especially for new migrants or those experiencing homelessness
• Housing innovation programs and strategy, or temporary accommodation programs and projects.

Acknowledging the leading work that councils are doing to test and scaled new systems and processes to meet changing community needs, integrate new technologies, support the impacts of increased workforce mobility, cope with resource strain and address other emerging challenges.

Examples may include:

• Testbeds or other formalised experimentation programs
• Experimentation roles and projects
• Collaborative programs with community and industry, allowing for testing of new ideas.

Examples of projects may include:

• Programs enabling new revenue for council
• Cross-council collaboration driving financial efficiencies
• Applications of technology for economic gains
• Systems to identify cost-savings.

Some examples of these contributions might include:

• Creating or delivering an internal program to build change resilience and capability
• Commitment to supporting staff through flexible and ongoing ways throughout a change experience or project
• Designing or delivering a change project where staff felt engaged, empowered and supported to adapt
• Managing changes in relation to the Best Start Best Life Reform agenda, for example process and staff changes, training and capability building.

This award acknowledges the dependency of council decision making on quality and up-to-date community, environment, economic, demographic, property and other data to support council staff and community conversations. Examples of projects include:

• Programs that help create greater access to data for councils for example data training, hackathons, data hubs, demonstrations or consultations
• Projects converting complex data in visually engaging outputs that support decision-making
• Tools for enabling council staff to analyse data, for instance, data tools and platforms
• Presentations and thought-leadership about innovative data practices.