PFM Award winners unveiled

10 November 2011

A partnership that delivers energy - and significant cost and CO2 savings - to several public and private buildings in Central Birmingham has won the Partners in Expert Services and the Overall Award at the PFM Awards 2011 held in London on 9th Nov.

A partnership comprising Birmingham City Council, Aston University, Birmingham Children’s Hospital and Cofely working together in the Birmingham District Energy Company to provide low carbon heat, electricity and chilled water, has voted the best of the best at the PFM Awards last night (9th November 2011) The judges found “an excellent four-way partnership that has been developed within a public sector procurement framework which required some forward thinking and commitment to the aims by all concerned.“

Cofely has laid a private network of piped services and cables under public roads in the busy city centre to serve the buildings connected to the scheme - an investment of more than £7m. The generating plant is housed in the various premises served and full operational responsibility rests with Cofely which in return has a 25 year contract based on guaranteed savings. To date over 17,000,000 Kg of CO2 have been saved and the system is now delivering savings in excess of 300,000 Kg per year.

Picture shows (left) Sandy Taylor, Head of Climate Change and Sustainability Birmingham City Council, (middle) Simon Woodward, Chief Executive of Cofely District Energy and Nicki Thomson. Relationship Director of sponsor Barclays Corporate.

The Lifetime Achievement in FM Award was presented to John Ellis, Managing Director of Freidman FM. One of the FM sector’s most successful business leaders, John has headed up some of its leading companies, and pioneered facilities management services in major retail developments and in heavy industry, as well as in public sector and corporate officesacross the country. He also headed the Facilities Management Association for several years.

The PFM Awards dinner held at the Brewery this week (Wednesday 9th November) was hosted by TV sports presenter, Chris Hollins, and was attended by 550 people from the facilities management sector. Now in their 18th year, the PFM Awards are recognised as the premier accolade for best practice at working in partnership to deliver facilities and support services across a broad spectrum of organisations in the private and public sectors.

Other category winners are as follows:

PARTNERS IN EDUCATION FM – Amey with the Belfast Education and Library Board

PARTNERS IN SECURE FACILITIES – Sodexo Defence with RMPA Services

PARTNERS IN PUBLIC ACCESS FACILITIES - SSS Management Services with Matalan

PARTNERS IN SKILLS DEVELOPMENT – Interserve with Asset Skills and RICS

PARTNERS IN CORPORATE SOCIAL RESPONSIBILITY – Helistrat Management Services with M&S

PARTNERS IN BUSINESS CHANGE – Shepherd FM with Yell

i-FM.NET E-BUSINESS AWARD –Not Just Cleaning for Amonet

PARTNERS IN EXPERT SERVICES – Cofely with Birmingham City Council

PARTNERS IN FM - SME ORGANISATIONS – Incentive FM with EMAP

PARTNERS IN FM – CORPORATE – OCS with Northgate Information Solutions

FMA YOUNG MANAGER OF THE YEAR – George Weekes, Senior Operations Manager, Balfour Beatty Workplace

PFM AWARD for PARTNERING EXCELLENCE - Jo Wilson, Central Services Officer,Matalan

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT IN FM AWARD - John Ellis, Managing Director, Freidman FM

OVERALL WINNER 2011 - Cofely with Birmingham City Council

For more information about the winners of PFM Awards 2011 contact: PFM Editor Tim Fryer (tim.fryer@imlgroup.co.uk) or PFM’s Consultant Editor, Jane Fenwick (fenwick.jane@yahoo.com)