Cabinet Office minister Hilary Armstrong and the Prime Minister hosted a breakfast at No.10 on March 27 with seven frontline workers as part of the Public Service Reform Conference 2007. The aim of the breakfast was to talk to a range of frontline workers who work across public services - and find out about the new approaches they are using in their daily work. Frontline workers included Richard Davis and Zico Heywood who are fire officers at Merseyside Fire and Rescue. They run projects with young people educating them about fire safety. Their project has successfully seen a 39% reduction in deliberate fires over three years. Zico actually became a fire officer himself through this scheme. Mickey Neale was also at the breakfast. He teaches literacy and numeracy skills to cleaners as part of a Skills for Life Programme in Barking and Dagenham. He has made a big difference to people who work in the cleaning service; reducing absenteeism rates and increasing their confidence. The frontline staff will also take part in the Public Service Reform Conference later in the day, joining in a discussion with Lord Victor Adebowale, chief executive of Turning Point about the impact the change they have implemented has had on service users. Hilary Armstrong, Minister for Social Exclusion and MP for North-West Durham, said: `I've been impressed this morning by the dedication and innovation of the public service workers I have met. They have all been successful in transforming their services and making a real difference to people's lives because they are putting the individual citizen at the heart of their service. "By finding personalised and innovative solutions to often complex problems they are changing the way we work with communities and engaging people in delivering services in the 21st Century." | 
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