17th October 2007

The National Maritime Museum is celebrating after beating off the challenge of hundreds of entrants to be named one of the best of British at the final of Remploy’s 11th annual Leading the Way awards.

The National Maritime Museum in Greenwich won the medium category at the final in London and was presented with the coveted award by entrepreneur and former Dragon’s Den TV show “dragon” Richard Farleigh.

Remploy is the country’s leading provider of employment services for disabled people and the prestigious awards, run this year in association with The Times, recognise outstanding employers and individuals who have made significant efforts to actively encourage diversity within their organisations.

National Maritime Museum was one of eight businesses and individuals honoured at the awards final at the Victoria Plaza hotel in London (on Oct 15) and ) Joanne Odle, Head of HR was delighted to have come out top of entrants from across Britain.

She said: “The Museum is committed to diversity and the efforts of Joanne Cannon has been instrumental in our drive to support Remploy’s aims and objectives. We are delighted to have won both the Regional and National awards.”

Remploy chief executive Bob Warner said in announcing the award that the judges had chosen National Maritime Museum as they were impressed by the broad range of activities undertaken by the museum and the number of disabled people it employed. They were also commended on their continuous push to meet the needs of disabled people in a positive way.

The initial contenders were whittled down to an early shortlist and then six regional finals earlier this month narrowed the field down even further but National Maritime Museum took the medium category in the London region to qualify for the national final.

Apart from the medium category won by National Maritime Museum, awards were also on offer to businesses in five other categories, namely for Learning, Retention, Innovation and for Small (fewer than 100 employees) and Large organisations (1,000+ employees).

Separate awards were also made to the Outstanding Business Individual and to the Outstanding Jobcentre Plus Individual of the year.

Richard Farleigh told guests that it made business sense for companies to be inclusive and a caring working environment generated respect.

He added: “We should be looking at all angles to get the right people. It is the mark of a good business that it is able to do that.”

Mr Warner told the audience at the awards: “It is always a privilege to applaud those businesses and individuals that go the extra mile in the employment of disabled people.

“Thanks to the example that many of you in this room have set, more employers are understanding the benefits of employing disabled people and helping to create a level playing field for disabled job seekers.”

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