A word from Brent, our Managing Director and CEO | October / November 2022

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A word from Brent, our Managing Director and CEO | October / November 2022

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31st October 2022

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It was great to catch up with so many of you at the LGAQ Annual Conference held in Cairns a couple of weeks ago and even better to celebrate the awarding of this year's Butch Lenton Memorial Award. Balonne Shire Council is really kicking goals, not only picking up the Butch Lenton bursary, but also winning the LGAQ Time to Shine competition.

Innovation is at its best in our outback and remote communities.  When we stop to think why, it really comes down to finding a better way. Doing more with less, working against the odds and the passion our councils have for improving the lives of their communities.

Balonne won the award for the ‘The Hub’ project, which was developed by Council in partnership with the Country Universities Centre (CUC) and co-designed by the community to improve educational outcomes and provide opportunities through a multifaceted dynamic space for the community to learn, ignite ideas, interact and access high-speed internet.

What is exciting is how they intend to use the $10,000 bursary. This will be used to develop a locally relevant Language, Literacy (including Digital Literacy) and Numeracy Project with input from the community, the project team, CUC Balonne, training providers and local skilled educators. This is about providing educational opportunities to all members of the community, including the most vulnerable and should be applauded. We look forward to seeing the outcomes of this project and how it could be replicated across our Queensland communities.

You can read more about the Country University Centre model in the article Duncan Taylor has written for this edition of News from Peak. I would like to take this opportunity to formally thank Duncan and his involvement with our HR Masterclasses this year, building awareness of this model and how it can address over time, the attraction and retention challenges facing our state. It has been a priority of our team and we are excited to be further supporting this issue with the upcoming LGAQ Study Tour on 28-29 November. I would encourage any regional and remote council to take the opportunity to participate in this tour to see firsthand how it could benefit your own communities.

So just to rehash some of the stats we shared in our update at the conference and celebrate the achievements of our team over FY22, I am pleased to announce...

  • We returned $5.6 million to LGAQ
  • Our Net Promotor Score, this comes from you (council), was 52, an exceptional result
  • Our staff satisfaction was 5.05 (out of 6)  
  • Our workforce team have provided over 760 hours of support to councils under the LGAQ IR Helpdesk and a further 11,000 hours in advisory services and facilitated 19 EB agreements
  • We trained 4,580 people
  • We recruited 87 people across 40 councils
  • Our consulting team provided 17,000 advisory hours
  • A further $712K was saved in renewable energy, bringing sector savings to $13.8M since 2014
  • 105 grant applications were written by our team, totaling $67M and securing $32M for Queensland councils
  • 12 councils are on our grant program and we boast a 70% success rate on applications submitted via this program
  • 160,889 calls were answered by Peak247 on behalf of your communities
  • 61 councils are now signed on to Local Buy’s NexGen
  • 5 NEW Active Arrangements were established, with 152 active tenders now in place increasing local participation and ease of access
  • We facilitated $757M in council spend
  • 1,600 hours of probity and procurement advice was provided
  • $1.7M invested in connectivity projects via the Telstra and Local Buy partnership
  • A further $38k was invested in Qld Public Libraries
  • $426K in supplier verification fees were waivered for small businesses, social enterprises

$5.6M delivered back to LGAQ

160889 calls answered by Peak247

760 hours of support via the LGAQ Helpdesk

87 positions recruited

$32M in grant funding secured for councils

4850 people attended training courses

17000 Advisory hours by consulting

Overall, an impressive result exceeding expectations in what has been an incredibly tough resource constrained environment post COVID.

Lastly, I am excited to announce the final figure raised for the 2022 Long Drive for Drought. A whopping $129,301!  We could not have done this without our sponsors, our participants and most importantly the councils we work with each year on this important event.

This brings the overall figure to $264,386 over the last three years, going back into supporting our Queensland primary producers through tough times by our charity partner Drought Angels. These are your communities, and we will continue to work with our partners to advocate and raise awareness about these challenges.

See you out there,

Brent

 

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