WAVENEY District Council was a runner-up in its category at Thursday night's Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards Ceremony - the leading local government awards scheme in Britain.

WAVENEY District Council was runner-up in its category at the Local Government Chronicle (LGC) Awards Ceremony - the leading local government awards scheme in Britain.

Waveney was a finalist in the standards and ethics category for the work of its Standards Committee and was one of six shortlisted candidates.

Although Leeds City Council won the award, Waveney narrowly missed out and was the only remaining candidate to be highly commended in this category.

The LGC Awards are the biggest in local government, measuring council's achievements at a national level while recognising the success and achievements of the very best in the sector.

Entries in the Standards and Ethics category had to demonstrate the contribution standards and ethics are making to local democracy and public confidence.

They had to show how local politicians, officers and the standards committee work together to champion ethical standards in their authority and how this work has made a positive difference to perceptions of local democracy and public trust in the area.

In order to promote the role of the Standards Committee, raise the profile of its chairman and support a recruitment campaign to ensure the committee was functioning at full strength, an action plan was formulated by Waveney's members, the committee and senior officers.

This work resulted in a number of innovative ideas including the Waveney Young Filmmaker Competition, the Ten Principles Poster Competition, the Planning Ahead Conference and the We Pledge Campaign.

Caroline Nixon, chairman of the Standards Committee said: 'Naturally we are disappointed that we didn't win, be we are thrilled that our work has been formally recognised with such a strong commendation. There wasn't automatically a highly commended candidate for each award, so we are proud to be singled out as an outstanding candidate.'