Scottish Public Service Awards 2025

This is the Twelfth year of the Scottish Public Service Awards (SPSA), which Holyrood Communications runs in partnership with the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government.

Awards will be given across 11 categories at this year’s award ceremony in the Garden Lobby of the Scottish Parliament on Wednesday 3 December. The evening will be co-hosted by the Presiding Officer Rt Hon Alison Johnstone MSP and Cabinet Secretary for Finance and Local Government, Shona Robison MSP.

These remarkable awards have been created to celebrate the often-unsung contribution made to Scotland’s civic society from within the civil service, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, local government, health and social care sector, broader public sector and their partners within the Third Sector.

Holyrood is proud to play a part in showcasing some of the innovative and thought-provoking work being done the length and breadth of Scotland.

Inspired by the late Campbell Christie and his incredible efforts to help reform Scotland’s public services, Holyrood launched the awards in 2014 with the aim of recognising and rewarding best practice, teamwork, innovation, and clear leadership across Scotland’s diverse public services.

The awards have now become a firm fixture in all our calendars, and nominations consistently celebrate the talent, commitment and all-round compassion that exists within Scottish public service.

We are pleased to announce the 2025 shortlist below. A preview of the event programme, including full descriptions of all the nominees, is available to view here.

For all of last year’s photos, visit our Flickr.

Announcing the 2025 Winners:

The Campbell Christie Public Service Reform Award

An award for the team that best embodies the spirit of public service reform as envisaged by Campbell Christie in his ground-breaking vision for public service delivery of the future. With a focus on prevention, working across departmental and organisational boundaries, placing the citizen at the centre of service delivery, and working efficiently to tackle the causes of social ills, rather than solely the symptoms.

Winner

Active Lives Pathway
Dumfries and Galloway Council, NHS Dumfries and Galloway, Dumfries and Galloway Health and Social Care Partnership

Runners Up

Reducing Antisocial Behaviour Leadership Group
East Renfrewshire Council
You Are Not Alone
I Am Me Scotland

The Campaign of the Year Award

This award recognises exceptional performance by a team or individual in the delivery of a highly engaging, imaginative and creative communications campaign that can demonstrate real impact. Campaigns can be either internal or external stakeholders/audiences, use any channel, and any budget. The judges are looking for measurable change, campaign recognition and real audience engagement.

Winner

South Ayrshire Young Carers
South Ayrshire Council

Runners Up

Raising Awareness of Sextortion
Fearless Scotland (part of Crimestoppers), Police Scotland and Scottish Government
What if a conversation about suicide could save a life?
Suicide Prevention Scotland, SAMH, Electrify, Republic of Media

The Project and Programme Management Award

This award celebrates a team or individual demonstrating excellent practice in project, programme and portfolio management, which has led to positive change for good. The judges are looking for why the project, programme or portfolio management stood out as exceptional, and what positive impacts this had. Why was this project head and shoulders above the rest and what identifiable approaches and processes were implemented that resulted in positive outcomes and ambitions being achieved?

Winner

Newton Tree Nursery
Forestry and Land Scotland

Runners Up

Carer Support Payment
Social Security Programme - Scottish Government
Digital Transformation Programme - ITC Managed Services Replacement
NHS 24

The Collaboration Award

Collaboration across sectors, whether that be with government, public, third or private sectors is a results-driven way to achieving better outcomes by identifying issues, learning from each other and truly working together in partnership to achieve a common goal. This category is open to any organisation that works in collaboration with others including industry and the wider business community to realise ambitions and achieve better outcomes than they could reach on their own. Judges will be looking for partnerships that can demonstrate excellence in collaborative working, bridging sectoral gaps, fostering innovative thinking, and implementing cross-sector initiatives in their work. This might include examples of contract negotiations and management, commercial policy development, smart procurement, best practice supplier management, cutting across bureaucracies or simply implementing new models of public service delivery that help to turn collective aspirations into reality by playing to individual strengths. An example of excellence in collaborative working can be found in a winner from last year’s awards with Scottish Government working with the Scottish Futures Trust and with the mobile telecoms sector to deliver 4G connectivity for the first time to 55 rural and island communities.

Winner

Improving Urban Waters Team
Scottish Water, m2 (Stantec/Mott MacDonald JV), ARC (Atkins/RPS JV), Caledonia Water Alliance (AECOM/M Group) and Clancy

Runners Up

Carer Support Payment
Social Security Programme - Scottish Government
Digital Evidence Sharing Capability (DESC)
Scottish Government and Justice Partners

The Leadership Award

The Leadership Award is open to any individual who has demonstrated outstanding leadership qualities at any level. Nominations should demonstrate how the nominee’s leadership has inspired those around them, and the impact they have made on civic society.

Winner

Afifa Khanam
Community Leader, Fife Council

Runners Up

PC Guy Jenner
Licencing Officer, Police Scotland
Robert Stitt
Prison Officer, Scottish Prison Service

The Digital Public Services Award

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This award recognises the innovative use of digital technology to solve problems and/or improve efficiencies and ultimately deliver improvements in public services to the citizen. The judges are looking for measurable outcomes.

Winner

Meet Millie: Our AI Digital Advisor
Renfrewshire Council

Runners Up

Assistive Technology Team
University Health and Social Care Lanarkshire
The Digital Evidence Sharing Capability Team
Scottish Government and Justice Partners

The Community Engagement Award

This award recognises the work of public bodies and their delivery partners in ensuring that the communities they serve are fully engaged in the development and delivery of public services in their area. Nominees should show how these links have been made and describe what the outcome was.

Winner

Glasgow Life Community Development Team
Glasgow Life

Runners Up

Additional Support Needs Holiday Support Programme
East Renfrewshire Council
Strengthening local voices across Inverclyde via Community Councils
Inverclyde Council

The Voluntary Sector Partnership Award 

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This award will recognise charities or community base organisations working together with public sector organisations to deliver better outcomes in public services. Increasingly, these partnerships provide the day-to-day services that are vital to people and communities throughout Scotland. They are often crucial for the wellbeing, or even survival, of citizens and community assets that could otherwise slip through the cracks.

Winner

You Are Not Alone
I Am Me Scotland, Scottish Prison Service, Police Scotland, Renfrewshire Council

Runners Up

Digital Lifelines Scotland
Digital Health & Care Innovation Centre in partnership with SCVO and Simon Community Scotland
includem’s family wellbeing service
includem and the Health Improvement Team Glasgow City Health and Social Care Partnership

The Sustainability Award

A submission in this category should demonstrate how an organisation or team has implemented policies, campaigns or technologies to help tackle the climate emergency, contribute to net zero emissions or to increase resilience to climate change in civic society. This award recognises those working towards a greener and more sustainable economy that benefits all. Entries should be supported by results.

Winner

NHS Orkney: Investing in a Sustainable Future
NHS Orkney

Runners Up

Newton Tree Nursery
Forestry and Land Scotland
Scottish Government Sandeel Management Team
Marine Directorate and wider Scottish Government

The Policy into Practice Award

This award recognises a project or approach by an individual, organisation or community-based initiative that has applied public policy to an issue to make a real difference in terms of practical delivery, user experience or costs effectiveness. This award will recognise the efficacy of taking a paper policy designed in theory and putting it into real-life practice and being able to demonstrate its worth in terms of improving the lives of Scots.

Winner

Scottish Welfare Fund - Spotlight on the High Most Compelling Priority rating
Scottish Public Services Ombudsman

Runners Up

BeWell+
Glasgow Life
respectme reward
respectme, Scotland's Anti-Bullying Service

The Lifetime Achievement Award

The Lifetime Achievement award recognises the achievements of someone who holds the good of public service to their very core. This is not open to public nomination, was chosen by the judges and will be announced on the night.

Winner

Malcolm Burr
CEO, Comhairle nan Eilean Siar (Western Isles Council)

It’s free to enter and entries are submitted through our nominations website.

You will need to provide:

Summary of your nomination (100 words)
Nomination including measurable benefits and impact (300 words)
Opportunity to include a testimonial (100 words)
Opportunity to upload up to three supporting items (video, images)

You can enter the same project for multiple categories provided the nomination is tailored to the category.

Entry Eligibility

Unless stated under the category, entries are welcomed by those working in or with Scotland’s civic society from our civil service, Scottish Government, Scottish Parliament, local government, health and social care sector, broader public sector and their partners within the Third Sector.

Shortlist

The shortlist will be announced in November and all shortlisted organisations will receive an invitation for the nominator and a colleague to attend the awards ceremony at the Scottish Parliament on 3 December, 6-8.30pm, where the winners will be announced.

Benefits of Entering

The SPSA’s offer an excellent way of celebrating success and sharing innovation and best practice, whilst raising the profile of your project, team or programme.

Rona Dougall will host this year's Scottish Public Service Awards.

Rona Dougall is a journalist and television presenter based in Edinburgh. She began her career in the Radio Forth newsroom, before becoming Scotland Correspondent for Sky News.

During her 16 years there she covered many headline stories, including the Dunblane massacre, the trial of the Lockerbie bomber at Camp Zeist in the Netherlands, the death of Princess Diana from Balmoral, the opening of the Scottish parliament and several Scottish elections.

She was also part of the British BAFTA award winning team with covered the terrorist attack at Glasgow airport. She has been the presenter of Scottish Television’s flagship politics and current affairs programme “ Scotland Tonight ” since it began in 2011.

She chairs discussions with guests in the studio, as well as interviewing big names from the world of politics and showbusiness – from Donald Trump to Ricky Gervais.