Bolton Council polished off its celebrations for receiving a top cleaning award with a special lunch for staff.

All cleaning staff were invited along to the event where the APSE (Association for Public Service Excellence) trophy for Service Team of the Year was formally handed over.

The council's Commercial Services department beat off competition from more than 160 entries to win honours in two categories -- Internal Service Team of the Year in Building Cleaning and Overall Service Team of the Year.

Councillor Donald Grime, Bolton Council executive member for direct services, said: "A lot of work goes into delivering our building cleaning services and it's nice to see it recognised in this way." The department's 400-strong team, provides 95 per cent of the authority's cleaning services.

At the lunch to help them celebrate were Director of APSE, Paul O'Brien, and Doug Edwards representing the sponsors of the award, Aptus Personnel. They handed over the awards to Cllr Grime and the Mayor of Bolton, Cllr John Walsh OBE.

And it proved to be a double celebration as 19 staff were also presented with NVQ awards in Building Cleaning.

All cleaning staff in the division are given the opportunity to train towards the qualification which is an industry recognised standard.

Beating off competition from more than 122 local authorities to win these awards is a credit to our building services team. These are national awards and are recognised among the public service sector as showcasing good practice.