Disaster Recovery Support

Supporting Councils in Disaster Recovery

Two major disasters; bushfire and drought have heavily impacted quite a few NSW councils. The NSW local government sector is currently being supported through a broad range of organisations, programs and governments in disaster response.

LGP has considered its position and capability as a small business and what our business can do to provide. We believe LGP can support the long process of bushfire disaster recovery, and those communities living in drought. We are pleased to announce LGP will drive a two years program that will see us partner with councils in the gruelling process of recovery from the bushfires and managing drought. 

The LGP Disaster Recovery Support Program will be made up of the following three initiatives:

Supporting Regional Economic Development

LGP is looking to promote awareness of the impacted regional towns and encourage people to direct their spending into local economies.

This includes moving planned LGP events into these regions. As a direct result, one network meeting has now been relocated to Batemans Bay. We have other events set for Tamworth, Port Macquarie, Parkes and Wagga Wagga, each of which has been impacted by bushfire or drought. 

To help generate people’s thinking and awareness on these affected communities, we will be inviting councils to provide a tourism promotion piece, which we will publish in LGP News and on the LGP LinkedIn page. We hope this will help share an important message through our broad communication channels encouraging the LGP community to return to and spend their money in regional NSW. 

We will be working with our 900+ Approved Contractors, encouraging them to consider how they can change their thinking and look to also move planned activities to support the economy of impacted regional councils. 

There will be some of our Approved Contractors whose business has been impacted by the bushfire and drought. LGP will be looking to do what it can to help them get back on their feet, stay in business and continue to serve their local community. 

Financial Assistance Package 

Feedback from councils is telling us they are now in the depths of disaster recovery, and they are already consumed with new tasks and activities to help get their community moving forward again. 

We know many of our procurement professionals in these disaster-affected councils attend the LGP Annual Conference every year to learn new concepts, build new relationships and connect with some longstanding networks. However, this year might be a different story due to this new important focus. 

Under this new program, LGP will be reaching out to each affected council to present a financial support model that we hope allows these regional procurement professionals to still make it to our conference later this year in October. In the coming weeks we will be in contact to share how we want to help maintain the procurement learning, and more importantly, make sure they don’t miss out on the connections and networks they have formed, as well as give them a chance to tell their stories over a few drinks with friends. 

Disaster Recovery Resource Support

LGP will waive off Sustainable Choice membership fees to impacted councils. This step will make all the member-exclusive information, services and support freely accessible. There are hundreds of council assets damaged, in need of repair or an upgrade due to bushfire and drought. In the design stage of these assets there is an opportunity to introduce environmentally resilient construction. Sustainable Choice has the ability to help councils introduce sustainable and social procurement ideas that used to be strictly in the domain of their members, until now. 

As mentioned earlier, we know our procurement professionals in the affected councils will be tied up for many months on the recovery effort. LGP will be recruiting a dedicated Business Development Manager to work with Michael, Aisha and Bronwyn as our existing Business Development Managers in the Southern, Western and Northern regions. 

This new role will work in conjunction with our existing Business Development Managers to specifically and exclusively support our resource poor councils. This new BDM position will help with Request for Quotation activity; serve as a communication conduit in the procurement space; be available to attend various disaster recovery committees and project teams where LGP’s support is requested. This new resource will also liaise with LGP Approved Contractors, either impacted by the disaster or who want to help those councils impacted by disaster. We look forward to rolling out this program for a two years period.

LGP is committed to supporting our loyal regional councils on the challenge they face during the recovery process.

Contact your Business Development Manager to discuss.