Building stronger connections between local businesses and councils with Local Buy

By Mike Waterland, General Manager, Local Buy

Every council wants to give local business owners the best opportunity to succeed when bidding for council work. Using local suppliers allows councils to obtain the goods and services they need while fostering economic growth in their region. This ensures that the benefits of council spending are felt directly by local residents.

Understanding who qualifies as a local supplier can be complex. Therefore, many councils include a local benefits test as part of their RFQ, where a weighting of up to 30% may be applied. The intent of the local benefits test is to support businesses that employ a local workforce, generating more quality, local jobs.

Local Buy plays a unique role in strengthening the bonds between local businesses and councils. Our pre-qualified Arrangements are an easy way for councils to connect with local suppliers, maximise local spend, and deliver the best outcomes for their communities.

Local Buy helps local suppliers bid for and win work in their region. Even locally, there is competition. Being pre-qualified on a specific Arrangement and categories related to your business shows the council that you have the necessary capability, processes, and systems in place (WH&S, insurances, etc.), plus pre-agreed purchaser conditions to be part of the procurement process.

Since transitioning to Arrangements that allow suppliers to tender to join our pre-qualified Arrangements quarterly, the growth in local or regional suppliers on our Arrangements has increased significantly. There are now over one thousand local or regional suppliers on Local Buy, with hundreds more statewide suppliers that have regional offices and supply chains.

There are many great examples of where councils have used Local Buy to grow connections with their local suppliers. By becoming a pre-qualified supplier, businesses are visible to all Queensland councils (not just their own), opening opportunities to win work from neighbouring council regions.

How Councils Can Use Local Buy to Create Connections with Local Businesses

To help your local suppliers learn more about supplying goods and services to councils, the Local Buy team can attend or help run local supplier engagement information sessions in your region. These sessions are typically meet-and-greet events for local business owners looking to supply goods or services to councils.

These sessions give business owners a chance to meet the council’s procurement team and a representative from Local Buy to better understand the local government quote and tender process and learn about how to become a Local Buy pre-qualified supplier. These sessions help suppliers interested in supplying goods and services to councils understand how they can better position their company when providing quotes or responding to tenders.

Some Recent Successes Include:

• Mapoon Aboriginal Shire Council – Worked with an SEQ-based supplier to build a local supply chain to help with civil and marine works, giving them the experience they had not previously had.

• Wujal Wujal Aboriginal Shire Council – In the last 12 months, onboarded five local small businesses to assist with general building maintenance, open spaces rebuild, and replacement of cyclone-damaged facilities. The suppliers live locally and are best suited to deliver the work.

• NPARC – Onboarded two local civil contractors.

Coming Up Soon:

• Douglas Shire Council – Supplier Information Session in early April.

• Prospective Local Buy Supplier Information Sessions taking place in April and May 2025. An online webinar to show the process and purpose of becoming a Local Buy supplier.

FIND OUT MORE ABOUT UPCOMING EVENTS

If you are a council and would like us to help coordinate a local supplier engagement information session in your region, please contact your Local Buy Senior Engagement Manager or our Head of Engagement, Emma Peters.