The Innovation Award

The Home Office’s ACE team solve public safety challenges from data and digital technology, at the pace demanded by a fast-changing world.ACE challenged conventional problem-solving, introducing agile, collaborative ways of working that accelerate solution-finding from years to months or weeks.This imaginative, entrepreneurial team found a new, costeffective way to drive start-ups, SMEs, the not-for-profit sector and academia to bring cutting-edge expertise to bear on these challenges.The team won the Institute for Collaborative Working’s 2019 innovation award, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology cited ACE as an effective model which should be replicated across government.

Our names are central to who we are as individuals, and getting people’s names right is crucial to helping people feel seen, included and valued.The Say My Name campaign started as a simple idea from a creative individual and grew into a proud achievement for a team.The team is now furthering inclusion and respect by using Say My Name - an initiative encouraging people to add the phonetic pronunciation of their name to their email signature.This is a simple, elegant idea to make all colleagues feel included.

The Analytics Academy is a bite-sized, gamified, online R coding course developed by the Central Analysis Unit for the whole of DfE. It uses an innovative approach to deliver training through online videos and coding ‘missions’, incorporating insights from behavioural science and the videogaming industry. Analytics Academy makes what could be a dry and tedious learning process into something entertaining and engaging, by injecting the personality of the trainers and the odd nerdy pop culture reference to keep things lighthearted. Nearly 500 DfE staff - almost

80% of the department’s analysts - have enrolled, and that number keeps growing.

Recognising the outstanding advancement or application innovation to improve policy, service delivery or public administration.