THURROCK Council is celebrating this week following news that two people had secured major national awards.
Lawyer Alison Stuart won the Local Government Individual Lawyer of the Year Award at the Lawyers in Local Government Awards on Saturday (29 November) night.
And Jill Moorman won silver in the Team Leader of the Year – Adult Services at the Social Worker of the Year Awards the same night.
Alison – a Thurrock-based lawyer in the service shared with Barking and Dagenham, and Brentwood – was nominated for the legal support she provided to the Thames Gateway project and the Local Development Order, the largest in Europe.
The project involved working with a number of partners including the Highways Agency, the Department for Communities and Local Government and UK Trade and Investment. The order was approved in record time.
Alison also had a number of testimonials from key clients and external partners and the judges were impressed with the broad work and management responsibilities Alison has undertaken within the shared service.
Head of legal, Fiona Taylor, said: “It is a great award for Alison, but also the shared service as a whole, showing how top quality work now remains in-house rather than having to be outsourced.”
Jill is team manager of the Thurrock Adult Safeguarding Team, and represents the borough on a number of regional forums.
She has been a qualified social worker for 18 years and a manager for 13 of them.
Her eight-strong team oversees all investigations, and provides advice and guidance for other practitioners across adult social care who may have concerns about a vulnerable adult’s safety.
Roger Harris, Thurrock’s Director of Adults, Health and Commissioning, said: “Jill and her team have overseen many very complex and challenging cases with skilled interventions, a high degree of professionalism and good outcomes for local people.
“Last year alone in over 90 per cent of cases, there were positive outcomes where people were safer, with abuse prevented or stopped, and perpetrators removed thanks to the work of this team.”
