What are the National Awards for Local Government?
The National Awards for Local Government were created to identify local government projects that are first rate or show new ways of dealing with the challenges a council faces. The National Awards promote these projects and councils so that other local government bodies can learn from the winning councils' projects and their experiences and not have to 'reinvent the wheel'.
The annual National Awards were set up in 1986 and are run by the Department of Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government. Australian Government Departments and agencies sponsor different categories of Awards.
How do the National Awards work?
Each year in January and February, various Australian Government Departments commit themselves to sponsor Award categories. An example would be the Dept of Health and Ageing sponsoring the categories of 'Planning for an Ageing Community' and 'Universal Design for Public Amenities'.
After publicity in March and April to alert councils to the categories available for that year, the Awards are open for submission of projects.
In 2008, councils can submit projects from Monday 28 April to Friday 6 June. Only during this period will the entry form be available on this web site.
After the submission period has closed, the projects are sent out to the category judges. Each category has its own judging panel. The panels have judges who are experts in the subject area and judges who have experience in local government - drawn from two bodies: the Australian Local Government Association and the Local Government Managers Australia.
The category judging process takes about 6 weeks. Once the panels of judges have made their decisions, the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government, the Hon Anthony Albanese MP, will announce the category and commendation winners. The announcement will be made about mid August this year.
All the project officers from category winning councils are then brought to Canberra by the sponsors to present their projects before a national judging panel. This year, the national judging will occur on 29 and 30 September. The names of the national winners are not announced until the Presentation Dinner, which is usually held in November.
Ministers of sponsoring Departments, Federal Members with winning councils in their electorates, other Australian Government representatives, winning council Mayors and project officers are invited to attend the gala Presentation Dinner. Commendation winners will receive their certificates and category winners will receive certificates and trophies presented by Minister Albanese. At the end of the evening, the Minister will announce the national winners.
Can a small council win?
The National Awards recognise that it would not be appropriate to judge projects from small councils, with fewer resources, against larger councils with more resources. A small council is defined as having less than 15,000 ratepayers.
Small council projects are only judged against other projects from small councils. If the projects are good enough, the category judges can choose a small council and a large council as winners of the category.
What are the 2008 Award categories?
Go back to the main page of this web site and click on "2008 Categories".
Where is the 2008 entry form?
Only during the submission period Monday 28 April to Friday 6 June, will the entry form be available on this web site. The questions that need to be answered are listed on the Category Fact Sheets.