Nottingham City Transport has been named UK Bus Operator of the Year for a record-breaking fourth time, as well as Top City Operator. It boasts an impressive customer satisfaction rate of 97%. The company’s modern, frequent buses have encouraged people to get back on the bus – bus passenger numbers have gone up in Nottingham since 2001 (while declining elsewhere).

By taking back control over its waste and recycling services, Liverpool City Council has been able to work towards achieving its goal of a 55% recycling rate by 2020. Councillor Steve Munby noted how since these services were brought back in-house ‘we have greater flexibility in our operations and we see city centre recycling as a priority’. The council has managed to put recycling facilities in Liverpool city centre apartment blocks for the first time – something the private sector had insisted was too difficult to do.

Robin Hood Energy is the first council-owned energy company in the UK. It’s a not-for-profit energy company which challenges the profit-making logic of the ‘big six’ energy firms by helping its customers to keep their tariffs low. Its mission is to provide low cost energy to households in Nottingham and beyond. No shareholders. No director bonuses.

Ards and North Down Council household food and recycling campaign was set up to improve local household recycling services. In 2016 they implemented the first phase of their Sustainable Waste Resource Management Strategy which included an innovative approach to food waste recycling. The council achieved a 145% increase in kerbside recycling of food waste which moved them to the top of the Northern Ireland Council performance table and saved ratepayers £630K of landfill tax in just the first year of their campaign.

Futures Advice, Skills and Employment is jointly owned by Nottinghamshire County Council and Nottingham City Council and is a social enterprise which provides jobs and skills advice, training and apprenticeships. Earlier this year it was Ofsted rated ‘outstanding’ for its delivery of the National Careers Service (NCS) which supported 36,049 local people last year across the whole of the East Midlands. Futures is the country’s first NCS prime contractor to achieve this rating in the eight years of the service. Futures also manages The Nottingham Jobs Hub which is a publicly owned enterprise set up by Nottingham City Council and the Department of Work and Pensions to match jobseekers with local employers.