14/01/2022 - Lutonians recognised in New Year's Honours

Also mentioned in the New Year Honours was David Jonathan, who is well known through his work as Director, Grassroots Programme, Luton Council of Faiths and Near Neighbours Programme. David was awarded an MBE for services to community cohesion and interfaith relations in Luton. 

Another British Empire Medal recipient was Muhammad Kamil Ali, Volunteer Tutor, BPCD Trust, who was honoured for services to education in Luton.

Cathy received the British Empire Medal “for services to vulnerable residents, the community and the public sector”, but immediately admitted to feeling “a little bit guilty about being singled out, because it really has been a tremendous team effort by a great group of people”.

While her substantive role is Customer Services Team Leader, for the last five months Cathy has been acting up as a Customer Services Operations and Delivery Manager, which has involved bringing people together from various parts of the council to react to the Covid crisis.

“There were people in different services who were really no longer able to do their normal jobs once lockdown started, so we were able to put together a really good team that has been able to do some brilliant work,” said Cathy. “I feel very lucky to have been part of it and delighted to have received the BEM, although I really feel that I’m accepting it on behalf of everyone involved.”

Cathy’s success is hardly a ‘flash in the pan’. She has worked for the council for more than 40 years, and over the last decade has managed an Adult Social Care team within Customer services dealing with some of the town’s most vulnerable people. The project helped to develop an ‘early help’ team that involves a range of professionals including social workers, clinical consultants, occupational therapists and a range of voluntary sector organisations.

Currently Cathy is managing the Test and Trace team, this being among the challenges she has helped to meet during the pandemic, and it is a source of some pride that when Cathy’s team took over responsibility from the national body the success rate for Test and Trace in the area increased dramatically.

“It just demonstrated that local knowledge can be so important when dealing with things like this,” said Cathy. “It has helped us to do a lot of good work with colleagues in Public Health/Active Luton.”