The small in-house PR team scooped the award for its contribution to the company and also its crisis communications response during the winter when Storm Desmond caused the loss of power to more than 75,000 properties due to flooding.
The team provided a 24-hour media response for five days, issuing 32 news releases and organising 20 media interviews, which resulted in doubling followers on social media and 1,117 pieces of positive coverage.

The PRCA Dare Awards, hosted last night at the Radisson Blu Hotel in Manchester, strive to seek out and reward the very best PR and communications professionals across the UK, decided by a panel of highly respected industry experts across five regions.

Head of Communications and Stakeholder Engagement, Michelle Lewis, said: “I’m really proud of the way our team has pulled together over the past year, particularly throughout the difficult winter storms where our focus was keeping our customers informed round the clock, while our engineers and other operational colleagues worked 24-hours a day on making repairs to the network to restore power.”