Education and Children’s Services Department provide direct services such as catering, building and cleaning and procurement to both internal and external customers, she has over the last year chaired Carmarthenshire County Council’s Heads of Service Forum and the Corporate Customer Care Steering Group.

Elin is responsible for a budget of £13 million and 1,500 staff. The school meals service in Carmarthenshire has 600 staff, produces 22,000 meals a day for 150 schools and has one of the highest uptakes of school meals in the country. Elin reviewed her division to improve efficiency and effectiveness. This involved restructuring management achieving a £46,000 saving in staffing costs. She also developed partnerships with public, private and voluntary sectors to answer concerns from Westminster. Elin carried out research into child obesity concluding immediate action was needed to help alleviate the problem and improve children’s nutrition through the School Meals Nutrition (SMN) Strategy. Elin has set-up a multi-agency partnership involving Carmarthenshire based agencies in an overall attempt to improve communication and efficiency throughout the sector. Her main focus has been to improve the health of children throughout the county through education and by providing quality school meals using local produce. She has worked passionately to ensure the authority, head teachers, school governors, parents and pupils, catering staff and suppliers were all aware of and supported the SMN Strategy. Elin’s enthusiasm, innovation and motivation is outstanding, colleagues say she is an experienced, dynamic leader who has shown real commitment, tenacity and vision to turn an ambitious plan into reality.