Council is urged to boost its policy
TOOWOOMBA’S deputy mayor has responded to a new campaign calling for the council to weight its procurement even more heavily in favour of local businesses.
The Toowoomba Chamber of Commerce has already earned more than 100 signatures on a petition for its “Give Locals A Fairer Go” campaign, which it says would return more ratepayer money back into the local economy.
The push involves increasing the local procurement policy weighting from 10 per cent to 25 per cent.
In plain terms, if an outside business quoted $100,000 for a council contract and the local operator offered $125,000, the two quotes would be given the same monetary value.
In his column in The Chronicle this week, Chamber CEO Todd Rohl said the move would “stimulate local economic development, enable businesses to flourish and retain jobs in the city”.
Deputy Mayor Geoff McDonald said he welcomed feedback on the council’s policies, but noted the organisation needed to balance its support for local businesses against getting the best price for services and goods.
“Toowoomba Regional Council is committed to supporting its local suppliers which has been reflected in several changes to our procurement policy over the past 18 months,” he said.
“This resulted in an increase to the weighting for local suppliers as part of our procurement process, as well as extra weighting for local suppliers in regional areas inside the Toowoomba region.
“While council is committed to supporting local suppliers, we also must ensure we’re making decisions which have the greatest benefit for our region more broadly.
“To do this, we must take into account a number of considerations when procuring, such as the experience of the supplier, the skills and quality of the service they deliver an understanding of the scope as well as local supplier weighting.”
Toowoomba Chamber events manager Kim Donaldson said community feedback indicated people would be happy to see more money flow to local businesses even if it led to a rates increase.
“The feedback we’re getting from the local community is for the council to stay local for skills, jobs and supplier contracts,” she said.