Transformation in the Public Sector CGC Awards
Purpose of the Awards
The awards aim to:
- Shine a spotlight on outstanding digital initiatives within central government.
- Encourage knowledge sharing and best practice across departments.
- Motivate teams to pursue ambitious, citizen-centric and efficiency-driven projects.
- Showcase how digital transformation drives better public services and value for money
- Encourage positive and effective market engagement between government and suppliers to enable fair practice and dynamic collaboration.
Celebration
Join us at the Building the Smarter State Conference 2026 to celebrate these achievements and drive the next wave of government digital transformation. Shortlisted nominee teams -- both suppliers and government departments – will be showcased on the techUK website and LinkedIn and celebrated by the CGC in recognition of their work. All shortlisted nominees will receive free tickets to the Conference where the winners will be announced and awards distributed.
Eligibility criteria and timeline
- Programmes or engagement sessions must have started after August 2024.
- techUK member suppliers, the government department or ALB are able to nominate a programme.
- The programme must have reached a go-live status by 2 February 2026.
- Applications will open on 2 February 2026 and end 3 April.
The application form will be open on the website in February 2026. Please email [email protected] to register an interest so that the form will sent to you on the opening date. Please see the award categories below.
Award Categories
- Citizen-Facing Technology Award
- Back-Office Digital Transformation Award
- Best Pre-Procurement Market Engagement
- Best Strategic Market Engagement
1. Citizen-Facing Technology Award
This award celebrates a programme that has delivered innovative, user-friendly digital services directly to UK citizens.
Key focus areas:
- Accessibility and inclusivity, ensuring all citizen groups can use the service.
- Measurable improvements in satisfaction, uptake or time-to-service.
- Transparent, secure handling of citizen data.
- Evidence of co-design with end users and iterative improvement.
Example criteria:
- Demonstrable increase in digital adoption or reduction in manual processing.
- Clear feedback loops and agile delivery that responded to citizen needs.
- Integration with broader government digital platforms.
2. Back-Office Digital Transformation Award
This award recognises a programme that has modernised internal operations within a government department, delivering efficiency gains and better outcomes.
Key focus areas:
- Streamlined workflows through automation or system integration.
- Cost savings and resource optimisation.
- Enhanced data-driven decision making and reporting.
- Staff empowerment through modern tools and training.
Example criteria:
- Quantified reductions in processing times or error rates.
- Evidence of cultural change, up-skilling or agile working methods.
- Reusable components or services that can scale across departments.
3. Best Pre-Procurement Market Engagement
This award celebrates great market engagement exercises aligned to specific procurements. Maybe you undertook engagement ahead of procuring a framework, or for a programme/contract
Key focus areas:
- Early and clear communication of requirements to the market
- Engaged a diverse range of suppliers
- A 2-way dialogue, enabling suppliers to effectively provide input
Efforts made to low barriers to entry and make the procurement as competitive as possible.
Example criteria:
- High number of suppliers engaged, and a diverse mix
- Evidence of receiving and adapting to input from market engagement ahead of the ITT launch
- A good number of competitive bids received
4. Best Strategic Market Engagement
This award celebrates engaging the market outside of the procurement cycle, recognising the value that warming up the markets brings in terms of improved outcomes across the board. Maybe you ran a strategic Supplier Day, or perhaps undertook some innovative capability discovery to understand where tech is heading and the art of the possible.
Key focus areas:
- Communicating high level demand signals and strategic priorities to the market
- Sharing strategic roadmaps and commercial pipelines
- Engaging wider part of your department/ALB
- Building trust with the market and fostering a partnering mindset with the supply base
Example criteria:
- Number of Participating suppliers
- Supplier feedback
- Evidence of bringing in other parts of your department
- Evidence of engaging next steps
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather Cover-Kus
Heather is Associate Director, Central Government and Education at techUK, working to represent the tech supplier community to Central Government.
She started as Head of Central Government at techUK in April 2022 and was promoted to Associate Director in August 2025 supporting both the Central Government and Education programmes.
Prior to joining techUK in April 2022, Heather worked in the Economic Policy and Small States Section at the Commonwealth Secretariat. She led the organisation’s FinTech programme and worked to create an enabling environment for developing countries to take advantage of the socio-economic benefits of FinTech.
Before moving to the UK, Heather worked at the Office of the Prime Minister of The Bahamas and the Central Bank of The Bahamas.
Heather holds a Graduate Diploma in Law from BPP, a Masters in Public Administration (MPA) from LSE, and a BA in Economics and Sociology from Macalester College.
- Email:
- [email protected]
- LinkedIn:
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/heather-cover-kus-ba636538
Ellie Huckle
Ellie Huckle
Ellie joined techUK in March 2018 as a Programme Assistant to the Public Sector team and now works as a Programme Manager for the Central Government Programme.
The programme represents the supplier community of technology products and services in Central Government – in summary working to make Government a more informed buyer, increasing supplier visibility in order to improve their chances of supplying to Government Departments, and fostering better engagement between the public sector and industry. To find out more about what we do, how we do this and how you can get involved – make sure to get in touch!
Prior to joining techUK, Ellie completed Sixth Form in June 2015 and went on to work in Waitrose, moved on swiftly to walking dogs and finally, got an office job working for a small local business in North London, where she lives with her family and their two Bengal cats Kai and Nova.
When she isn’t working Ellie likes to spend time with her family and friends, her cats, and enjoys volunteering for diabetes charities. She has a keen interest in writing, escaping with a good book and expanding her knowledge watching far too many quiz shows!
- Email:
- [email protected]
- Phone:
- 020 7331 2015
- Twitter:
- @techUK,@techUK
- Website:
- www.techuk.org,www.techuk.org
- LinkedIn:
- https://bit.ly/3mtQ7Jx,https://bit.ly/3mtQ7Jx