Local Service Champions – making our communities safer

We don’t always see what council workers do in our communities, but they’re there, making our lives better

UNISON is campaigning to help raise awareness of the Local Service Champions who are there for all of us, every day, to make our lives better.

Unfortunately, many people don’t realise how important local government and council workers are or what they do – often, we go about our daily lives without evening seeing them.

Here’s Jozef, one of the street cleaning team in Hackney, east London. Early this morning, he found a second smashed bus stop window on his route in just 24 hours.

As a street cleaner, it’s his responsibility to clear anything that’s on the ground. But the glass is heavy – even when it’s been shattered like this.

He reported the situation to his manager, hoping that, as yesterday, the electric road cleaner would come along to help. Otherwise, he’ll have to load all the broken glass into the bins that he pushes around.

That would make the load a lot heavier – no one person would have carried that pane of glass when it was being fitted – with the increased risk of straining his back.

But he didn’t stand around waiting. He got on with making the area safe for bus passengers as quickly as possible and, if he has to load all the glass into his cart, he will – because that’s what he does.

Thank you, Jozef – for being a Local Service Champion.

Find out more about Local Service Champions here