The GIG Awards 2023/24

 

Award – Lifetime Achievement (Joint Award)

Joint Winner: David Smith

Reason: David has been instrumental in developing the KIM profession in Government. He has spent his career in KIM, from librarian in the 1980’s to Head of KIM and Departmental Records Officer at the Department for Levelling Up, Housing and Communities today. He is recognised as a leader, mentor and champion of KIM professionals across the public sector.

 

David has played a key role in the development of cross-government initiatives, including modernising the professional skills competency framework, reviews of record keeping and the introduction of electronic records catalogues. His leadership on electronic records and freedom of information in the early days of email and electronic publications was ground-breaking, innovative and set the professional standards for government which have been in place ever since. David has been personally recognised several times by external professional bodies, including being awarded an Information and Records Management Society Fellowship in 2018 and a special recognition award for his work to support the profession during the COVID-19 pandemic.

 

The GIG Awards Judging Panel were impressed with David’s pivotal work in developing the KIM profession in government since the 1980s. This was a strong nomination which highlighted David’s leadership within the KIM community and through being Head of Profession for 8 years. The Panel believed that David was an excellent candidate for the award.

Joint Winner: Paul Woods

Reason: Paul has been nominated for his outstanding work over a number of years both within the Government Legal Department (GLD) and predecessor organisations, and for his expert knowledge of library subscription services and legal information management.

 

Paul has worked in several knowledge and information roles and is currently GLD’s Legal Information Manager, leading projects and delivery of library and legal information services for GLD and the wider Government Legal Profession. In addition to his expert knowledge mentioned above, Paul also brings with him an extensive knowledge of wider GLD systems and library systems having worked on projects such as LION during his career. He has handled the complexities of stakeholder management and contract negotiation with intelligence and a calm attitude which provides confidence and reassurance to those he works with. Paul’s contribution has been felt across GLD and the civil service for a long time.

 

The GIG Awards Judging Panel were impressed with the scope of work undertaken by Paul within Government Legal Department. Paul’s nomination includes personal testimony of the impact of his training and mentoring as well as description of his wider role in facilitating learning and development. Again, the Panel believed that Paul was an excellent candidate for the award.

 

 

 

Award – Annual Award

Winner: The Home Office Knowledge Management Team

Reason: The Knowledge Management team at the Home Office are key leads in using storytelling as a way to express Learning from Experience. The team has concentrated on three sessions which demonstrated the following: a story that has been created specifically for the Home Office; providing information around the technique of storytelling; and a short exercise where colleagues can map out how a story could be told using Freytag’s Pyramid. These sessions were created to share best practice with others across government, allowing colleagues to learn more about the technique and how they can make best use of it.

 

The three sessions delivered this year were for a variety of audiences including UK Health Security Agency, the Knowledge Mavericks network and as part of One Big Thing, the Civil Service’s recent drive to improve the way it works with data.

 

The GIG Awards Judging Panel agreed that this was not only a novel project but an excellent example of sharing best practice across government. The team clearly worked well together disseminating their storytelling ideas and had received impressive feedback for their work.