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For the third year running, Suffolk County Council has been shortlisted for Beacon Council status in two areas; Libraries as a community resource and Transition in education.

The council has been awarded in 2001 for local health strategies and in 2000 for work on children leaving care and helping schools at risk of failure.

The award recognises best practise within local government and encourages council to share experiences with others to improve the service provided to the public.

The two areas selected, libraries and education will be focused upon by officials from the panel to find out more about the councils work in each area.

The key areas of the council’s application in libraries as a community resource is the creation and use of technology in libraries, a unique partnership with the employment service to enable people to access details of 400,000 jobs. Another key area of the application was the use library links scheme which brings libraries to rural communities.

In Transition for Education the key elements of the application were a partnership between the county council and Homerton College, Cambridge to develop teaching materials from the pupils perspectives, as well as developing electronic methods of transferring pupils information between schools to help teachers plan work.

Jane Hore, leader designate of Suffolk County Council, said: “A lot of effort has been put into developing partnerships and new ways of working.” She went onto say “We are pleased to have these areas of work shortlisted, particularly after previous success.”

Seventy-five applications were made from 63 councils, and the successful candidates will be announced in April.