This is the first time the Local Land Charges team at Westminster City Council has won an award in this category, the team has picked up trophies four times before winning the Best Performing NLIS Level 3 LLC Department in 2010, 2013 and 2018. In 2017 the team was awarded the Best Performing LLC Department of the last 10 years Award, a special Award created to mark the 10th anniversary of the Awards.

The team’s Head of Service told us that they have recently moved into an open plan working environment, “The days of Local Land Charges Officers remaining hidden behind a very large cupboard are long gone! Members of the team are experts in gastronomy and advise colleagues in other services where they should go to eat and drink locally- Chinatown and Oxford Circus being special areas of their expertise. Local Land Charges Officers also appear to be the best travelled of any other group of officers working for Westminster Council - must be all that detailed data work and checking complex addresses! Anyone planning a holiday is best advised to get their holiday plans checked out first with Local Land Charges before they book!

Solicitors comments

“Fast turnaround & always a quick response to queries. The team is always happy to help and are friendly and patient, it’s a very efficient service.”

“The staff here are more than helpful and always respond quickly, they go out of their way to help me. They are my favourite council to work with, thank you.”

“The staff are highly efficient and friendly, the perfect combination!”

“Friendly, efficient and very helpful, a top service”

This is the first time the team at Wealden has won this award category. In 2015 and 2016 they won the Best Customer Experience Award and were highly commended for the Customer Satisfaction Award in 2016 and the Best Performing Local Land Charges Department in 2010.

Judges comments

“Wealden District Council provided full details of the team and its processes in their entry. The questions were answered clearly and fully, indexed evidence was provided in all cases to substantiate the claims made. The team works well with both colleagues and customers and does its very best to provide the best service possible in a timely fashion. Use of the LLCI website, the Land Data forum and the Knowledge Hub are important to this LA which enables the team to keep up to date with legislation and changes in the service provision.”

A third time finalist for this award category, the LLC team at the City of York collected the highly commended trophy in 2014 and the winners’ trophy in 2019. The team came 5th in the same category in 2015 and 7th in 2017. Since their 2019 win, the department has been reduced to just two - Peter Audin who is the City of York’s Local Land Charges Manager and LLPG Manager (Peter is also the LLCI President) and Senior LLC Officer Ian Hartley. Last year the team also won a Gold Standard Geoplace Exemplar Award for property address data, this was their second Geoplace award in 3 years.

Another third time finalist for this Level 2 award category, the London Borough of Bromley team collected the highly commended trophy in 2015 and 2019. The team has been shortlisted in the same category in 2013, 2016 and 2018.

Arun District Council is the only local authority to have won or been highly commended for an award every year for the past 5 years!

Cllr Matt Stanley, Arun District Council Cabinet member for Technical Services said; “Arun District Council has won the Customer Satisfaction Award for the past three years as well as being Highly Commended in the 2016 and 2017 Best Customer Experience category. Votes for the Customer Satisfaction Award are made by solicitors and licenced conveyancers who nominate LAs based on high levels of customer service - quality, efficiency, reliability and value for money are all part of the voting criteria. Their confidence in our team is real testament to the hard work and high levels of service they provide.”

Judges comments

“There are numerous worthwhile reasons why Arun DC has appeared on the shortlist for this category for the past 5 years and this year their solid and consistent customer communications really stands out. To ensure the customer journey remains stable, the team are the first point of contact for customer search queries even when that query relates to other departments. Copy documents are sent back on the same day, additional information, cross checking and speedy notifications were all well evidenced and demonstrate that this is a team prepared to go beyond the extra mile to make the search process smoother.”

Winner:

Hayley Ayris, Havering London Borough Council

Members of the NLIS Hub helpdesk team commented:

“Hayley is extremely helpful; she is always so positive and really tries her very best to meet the client’s deadlines. Such a pleasure to speak to.”

“Hayley is always so helpful especially with problematic commercial searches!”

This is the first time Test Valley has won an Award category, jumping to the top of the Most Improved category by dramatically reducing turnaround times through service consistency and contingency planning.

Karen Rosier (pictured here) has recently qualified as a Pilates teacher and is organising classes within Test Valley as part of The Wellbeing initiative. She is hoping Steve and Matt will be signing up!.

A first time win for Mid Devon District Council in this Award category. The team of two won the Customer Satisfaction Award in 2016 and were highly commended for the Most Improved NLIS services award in the same year.

Outside of work Donna and Pauline like to keep fit. Donna has completed a half marathon in the past and more recently likes to keep fit by attending regular spinning classes. Pauline is a fan of yoga and has been attending classes for 15 years.

Judges comments

“We saw some excellent entries for this category. The very detailed digital data journey from Mid Devon was superb, their entry was evidence based and showed clear links to the five characteristics of high-quality digitised data stated in the criteria. Excellent work from Mid Devon!”