The council is in the running for the title of “best achieving council” in this year’s prestigious local government awards.
Luton council is also shortlisted in the workforce transformation category of the Municipal Journal awards for its Street Cleaning Division.
The bid to be named best achieving council centres on the work carried out by staff in the face of shrinking budgets, in particular the fostering service, provision of more affordable housing in the New Homes for Luton scheme, the completion of Inspire Luton Sports Village and continued improvement in GCSE results.
Trevor Holden, the Council’s Chief Executive, said: “Once again, it is fantastic that Luton has been shortlisted for these awards. It is great that the outstanding work being done by our staff has been recognised, and I am hopeful that we can come back from the ceremony as double winners.”
The efforts of the Street Cleansing Division to continually improve their service resulted in the team being shortlisted.
A council spokesperson said that over the past ten years, the team have worked hard to ingrain a ‘can do’ attitude, empowering staff to take immediate action to keep Luton’s streets clean for residents.
To ensure that all employees had a clear idea as to what their service was trying to achieve, the vast majority of frontline staff took NVQ level two training in street cleansing.
Coupled with good management and communication, the team quickly saw huge improvements in customer satisfaction surveys, with latest figures showing almost 97 per cent approval rates.
The winners will be announced at a ceremony in London on Thursday June 20.