When we decided to go ahead with this year’s Awards, it was because we felt it was more important than ever, right now, to recognise the work of the most outstanding Hidden Heroes in our prisons, IRCs, probation services and youth justice settings. But we were also rather nervous, under the circumstances, about how many nominations we’d get.

We needn’t have worried… because, in spite of all the challenges the sector is facing right now, we received almost 350 nominations – the second highest number ever – from colleagues, managers, prisoners and service users, all wanting to recognise the extraordinary impact their nominees were making to other people’s lives.

We’d like to say a big thank you to all of you who took part this year, and good luck to all the nominees. Now we, and our Awarding Panel, need to get on and do our thing – it takes a while (it’s not something you can rush) but we’ll keep you in touch with our progress.