Refuse workers, trading standards officers, environmental health inspectors, youth workers, library workers, care assistants – and many more – deliver vital local services. They are the glue that hold our communities together. UNISON’s Local Champions campaign celebrates and defends local government workers for the everyday heroes they are. 

Local government workers go above and beyond the call of duty to keep the country going, yet their efforts are often overlooked. They support us at every stage of our lives. We depend upon them to provide critical public services, that adapt to our ever-changing needs and to hold our communities together.

UNISON’s Local Service Champions campaign celebrates the invaluable contribution local authority staff make to our lives, raising the profile of these unsung heroes and everything that they do.

Local Service Champions Awards 🎉

Our annual Local Service Champions Awards celebrate the incredible work that local authority staff do and its impact on the lives of the people who depend on it. Without dedicated workers who make a difference so many invaluable services would disappear, so we owe our champions a huge debt. 

Nominations for the 2024 awards are now closed.

We will be reviewing the nominations and compiling a shortlist for our judging panel to review shortly. The top 3 winners who are selected by the panel will be reveal at Local Government conference in June.

Previous winners

Meet our 2023 winner Jade Carter-Williams and runners-up Martine Horner and Jo Foster-Murdoch by watching our short films that showcase the difference they make in their roles:

Watch Jade’s film

Watch Jo’s film

Watch Martine’s film

When Paddy met Christopher

Last year, our 2022 Local Service Champion Paddy Toner sat down with acting superstar Christopher Eccleston (star of Doctor Who, Our Friends in the North and countless other films and shows) to talk about the importance of local government workers and the impact of funding cuts to local services:

 

Latest

Local Service Champions: binding our communities together

We meet the winners of this year’s Local Service Champions Awards

Magazine, UNISON people on the Magazine site.
Dawn Hallewell receiving her award

Conference applauds the Local Service Champions

Award winners named before local government delegates get back down to the debates

A month of perennial change

But championing and defending our members are always on UNISON’s agenda

Blog: We will always fight for local services

As the biggest local government union in the country, we will always fight for local services – and for the funding that’s needed to provide them. So it was fantastic to see so many people getting behind the heartbeat of our local communities, local government workers, on our first Local Service Champions Day yesterday. There’s […]

Are you local champs ready?

With Local Service Champions Day fast approaching on 17 October, we chatted with Diane Peacock, the branch secretary at UNISON’s City of Sunderland branch, about the exciting plans her team have in place to celebrate local government’s hidden heroe

Resources

Resources