Justin Wand was approached for a new job on the back of it, while news of an awards win went straight to the top at Portsmouth City Council.

The Fleet News Awards represent the pinnacle of fleet achievement. Judged by some of the most respected fleets, leasing providers and industry experts in the country, chaired by ex-SMMT chief executive Christopher Macgowan and audited by Deloitte, they combine transparency with robust deliberations to ensure only the very best companies and people win.

Cllr Donna Jones, leader of Portsmouth City Council which won fleet of the year – up to 250 vehicles, summed up her pride, saying: “Congratulations to everybody who has worked very hard to ensure that the council has an outstanding, award-winning fleet we can all be proud of."

Justin Wand, who collected fleet manager of the year, before being approached to move from South East Coast Ambulance Service to London Ambulance Service, said: “Winning the Fleet News Award did wonders for my profile, nationally and internationally as well, and it was great recognition within the ambulance service.”

Matt Dyer, managing director at LeasePlan, said winning leasing company of the year “meant a huge amount to us as a business”, while for rental company of the year Thrifty it was “a huge accolade to win”, according to sales director Caroline Gallagher.

Winning a Fleet News Award is a great boost to a business, particularly for fleets. It raises the profile of a fleet decision-maker both internally and externally and gives a fillip to members of the fleet team or other key stakeholders within the organisation.

The trophies for the Fleet News Awards will be presented at a special ceremony next March 15 at London's Grosvenor Hotel.

New online entry system

Reflecting the spirit of innovation that is a consistent characteristic of the Fleet News Awards each year, Fleet News itself has introduced an important new feature for entrants, judges and the Fleet News team.

New for the 2017 Fleet News Awards is a simple-to-use online submission and management of your entries.

To familiarise yourself with the process go to www.fleetnewsawards.com and click on the masthead link, ‘Award categories and entry process’. Here you’ll see the list of categories that are available in 2017.

To begin your entry process, you need to register first by providing some basic information about yourself and your company and then set up your password to create your awards account.

Once this is complete you can move on to making your first entry. Each time you select a category to enter you’ll be given a description of the criteria and our entry requirements – everything you’ll need to supply so that Fleet News can judge the entry fairly.

Beyond this, the entry form is broken into three parts.

Firstly you’ll put in details such as the company on behalf of which you’re entering and who will collect the awards should you win (if you know at this stage).

The second stage is probably the most important as you will be asked to answer the category questions. To ensure fairness we’ve put word limits on each question.

Once you’ve completed the submission stage you can then move on to providing attachments, typically material supporting your entry. These can be PDFs and images from your computer – and you can list web addresses the judges should look at, or perhaps a YouTube-hosted video we should watch to further understand your business.

If you aren’t in a position to complete all the steps above in one go, it doesn’t matter as at any stage in the entry process you can save your information and return to it later.

Your entries will be saved in a ‘My awards’ area accessible when you login using your email address and password.

When you are finally satisfied with your entry, you can submit it for the judges’ consideration.

If you decide later that you need to add more information ahead of the entry deadline or you simply want to review your entry after you’ve submitted it, you can do so via your ‘My awards’ area.

You can also delete an entry – and restore it if you realise you’ve been too hasty.

And, if you’re unsure at any point about the process, there are ‘help’ buttons throughout each step – send us an email with your question.

The Fleet News Awards judges will have access to the submitted entries where they will be able to view them or download them.

The new online system has been devised to simplify the entry process, doing away with the need to download entry forms, keep them somewhere safe while completing them and then storing copies once submitted.

Your ‘My awards’ area means you have all the information in one place, easily accessible from any internet-enabled device. Any queries - just email fleetnewsawards@bauermedia.co.uk.

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