2024 - a year in review

By Mike Waterland, General Manager

The festive season is upon us, and 2024 is almost over. What a year it has been! I am incredibly proud of what the team at Local Buy has accomplished this year. It has certainly not been easy, but they have excelled! It has been a remarkable year, from groundbreaking partnerships to bringing back the Local Buy conference.

We are so grateful for your support and we thank you for being part of our journey in 2024. When we decided to bring back the Local Buy conference after a five-year hiatus, we chose a theme that encapsulates what we are about: Advancing Queensland Procurement.

Our goal is to make it easy, efficient, and effective for local government to connect with suppliers locally, state-wide and nationally.

This year, we have seen unprecedented growth and success. More councils and organisations than ever are using our Arrangements, resulting in a 25% increase in usage over the last two years. We welcomed a thousand new pre-qualified suppliers across 170 open Arrangements throughout the year. We verified 18,545 compliance certificates and welcomed 25 new purchasing organisations.

We implemented a new engagement strategy that focuses on our customers in councils throughout Queensland and the Northern Territory. Over the past 12 months, we developed a comprehensive engagement program to connect with councils and suppliers through various events and conferences including a dedicated fleet forum. We initiated regular monthly supplier welcome sessions and VendorPanel training in an effort to increase awareness and usability. This commitment aims to enhance collaboration and communication.

New and Refreshed Arrangements

We introduced three new, highly anticipated Arrangements, including Temporary Recruitment and Building and Construction. We also split Water and Sewage from Civil Engineering and completed six other major refreshes, including a new Trucks NPN contract and an improved Recruitment MSP Arrangement. We now have over 60 pre-qualified Arrangements for councils and other approved purchasers to access 4,000+ pre-qualified suppliers.

 Arrangements and Awards

Our Arrangements initiative, which opens our Arrangements every three months, has been a game-changer for suppliers and councils alike. This initiative recently won the CIPS Australia and New Zealand Award for Best Transformation and Change Program 2024. The judges praised our understanding of the barriers to entry for suppliers and our efforts to support them.

Groundbreaking Partnership with the State Government

We developed a groundbreaking partnership with the State Government to roll out VendorPanel across two tiers of government (local and state) in Queensland. This program is well underway, and by the end of this year, we will have 66 councils and 85 State Government agencies on one common platform for all procurement activities. This initiative positions Queensland at the forefront of procurement in Australia leading up to the 2032 Olympics. It is a fantastic example of how two levels of government can work together to make life easier for businesses by increasing the visibility of procurement opportunities and reducing time and effort.

Procurement Technology Implementation

We completed the implementation of a $7 million-plus investment to improve sector-wide procurement capability. Today, 85% of councils are using the fully funded VendorPanel Enterprise. Last year, almost 6,000 requests for tender or request for quote were finalised across the platform, worth around $1.13 billion. We now have over 1,000 council staff active on the system.

Supporting Small Businesses

Last year, we changed our administration fee exemptions, benefiting over 1,100 Queensland-owned small businesses. These businesses are now exempt from the annual administration fee, and as a result, we now have almost as many small Queensland-owned businesses as the total number of pre-qualified suppliers we had back in 2019. Currently, 27% of all pre-qualified suppliers on Local Buy are small Queensland-owned, social enterprise, or indigenous businesses.

Looking Ahead to 2025

A key part of our future strategy is to ensure Local Buy remains the easiest way for councils to connect with trusted pre-qualified suppliers, maximise local spend, and deliver the best outcomes for their communities. We will continue to invest in new Arrangements, provide more support to councils, and we are not stopping here—our investment in local government procurement continues with new functionality and refreshed interfaces, including a new ‘Home page’ in VendorPanel to make it easier to access information, an upgrade of the Contracts Monitor module to Contracts Lite in VendorPanel, and a refreshed and upgraded ArcBlue Hub.

As we look forward to embarking on new adventures in 2025, we remain committed to supporting local councils and suppliers, fostering strong partnerships, and driving positive change across Queensland.

We look forward to achieving even greater milestones together in the year ahead!