Redbridge and Herts take Socitm awards

The winners were announced at the annual conference of Socitm, which runs the awards with the Society of Local Authority Chief Executives and IT industry association Intellect. Redbridge won for Ilford Blueprint Online, a web based marketing tool the council developed with Virtual Viewing, providing three dimensional visualisation of development potential in the borough. Socitm said the project team has combined web based commerce and gaming technology with planning policy and regeneration, to promote development opportunity sites identified in Ilford's Area Action Plan. Hertfordshire won for the Online Free School Meals project, which Socitm said is "transforming a service with a complex delivery chain that sat in the 'too difficult to solve' box for years". It is working with 174 local authorities in England and Wales and four central government departments to change a paper based process to an electronic one that will serve over a million children annually. The Metropolitan Police received a special prize for innovation for its Focus Court Presentation System, a digital evidence viewer and organiser, while Nuneaton and Bedworth BC was highly commended for its e-buy procurement system, which is said to be on course to save £3.5m over five years.