Children’s Hearing Scotland named winners of APM-sponsored award

Association for Project Management (APM) is offering congratulations to Children's Hearing Scotland (CHS) for winning the Project and Programme Management Award at the Scottish Public Service Awards 2024 on Tuesday 10 December. The Project and Programme Management award category was sponsored by APM and it recognises the best examples of project and programme management across Scotland’s diverse public services.  

CHS recruits, trains and supports around 2,500 volunteer Panel Members who make legal decisions with and for children and young people in children’s hearings. CHS won the Project and Programme Management Award for their work on the Tribunal Support Model Programme, which supports young people by providing volunteers to sit on children's hearings.

Claire Gibson, Senior Change Manager for CHS, commented: “We are thrilled to have won this award, acknowledging years of care, attention and planning by the CHS volunteer community and National Team colleagues. This work is an important building block in the promise we made to children and young people to transform the hearings system in Scotland, and we are honoured to have had it recognised.” 

CHS implemented The Tribunal Support Model in 2023-24, introducing a new regional Area Support Team structure and a centralised approach to allocating Panel Members to hearings. Nine regional Area Support Teams are now in place, matching the Scottish Children’s Reporter Administration (SCRA) localities, to provide alignment with CHS’s key hearings system partner. 

Each area has a dedicated Tribunal Delivery Manager, Partnership Coordinator and Wellbeing Coordinator. They work alongside local teams of volunteer Panel Engagement Leads, Lead Panel Practice Advisors (Lead PPAs) and Learning Champions to support our 2,200 Panel Members and PPAs across Scotland. 

The Scottish Public Service Awards 

Inspired by the late Campbell Christie, who chaired the Christie Commission that delivered a new vision for public services in Scotland, the Scottish Public Services Awards were launched in 2014 and are run by Holyrood Communications in partnership with the Scottish Parliament and the Scottish Government,  

The awards aim to recognise best practice, teamwork, innovation and clear leadership across Scotland’s diverse public services. Nominations were considered by a panel of judges from across the public, private and third sectors. The Project and Project Management Award was presented by Amos Haniff, Professor of Project Management at Heriot-Watt University.