BURNLEY Council has celebrated winning a national award for its dedication to training of staff.

The council was presented with the Investors in People (IiP) status -- which recognises the council's commitment to training and developing its staff -- after two years hard work.

Dr Gillian Taylor, who led the successful bid, said: "We are committed to continuous improvement and decided two years ago that concerted and systematic investment in the best possible training and development of our staff must form the basis of this improvement.

"This has been a genuine team effort, driving forward a programme of improvements to benefit not only all our staff but ultimately the community we serve.

"The accreditation is brilliant, but is just the start. We have a big programme of further improvements to make in the future."