2020 Achievement Awards
11 Dec 2020

The Institute of Public Administration Australia WA (IPAA WA) celebrated individual and organisational excellence in public administration at its ninth annual Achievement Awards ceremony on 11 December 2020.

Host of this year’s ceremony, IPAA WA President Mr Mike Rowe, commented on the quality of nominations seen this year in his role as co-chair of the main judging panel, “I am pleased to say that I have been directly involved in the judging process as Co-Chair this year and the calibre of nominations demonstrates the high quality of those who deliver public services in this state.”, he said.

The IPAA WA Patron’s Award, the highest accolade in public administration in WA was the first award presented. This year’s Patron’s Award recipient was WA Police Force Commissioner, Chris Dawson APM FIPAA, who was presented the award for his long standing, distinguished service to the public sector in Western Australia in his senior leadership roles within the WA Police Force. Commissioner Dawson was also presented with an IPAA National Fellowship, awarded annually by IPAA Divisional Presidents, for having made outstanding contributions to public service in Australia.

This year 24 awards were presented across 19 categories, including two new categories introduced to recognise diversity and innovation in the public sector – Lotterywest award for Best Practice in LGBTI Inclusion, and an award for Best Practice in Innovation.

The two collaboration award categories were once again popular, with the judges unable to separate two nominations in the Best Practice in Collaboration Across Government Agencies category, awarding two winners. A similar scenario occurred in the Best Practice in Collaboration Between Government and any other Organisation category - “In what is proving to be a very pleasing trend, we once again received a large number of high quality nominations in this category.  The judges believed that more than one project deserved recognition”, Mr Rowe said before announcing the Gold winner, the Department of Finance for their Aboriginal Procurement Policy.

The Transport Portfolio were the big winners on the day, picking up four awards for Main Roads WA, and one award for the Department of Transport.

Principal sponsor of the 2020 Achievement Awards were Aware Super, one of Australia’s leading superannuation funds. In addition, other organisations were amongst the many award sponsors that made this year’s Awards a success.

Click here to view all winners from the 2020 Achievement Awards

Click here to view photos from the 2020 Achievement Awards