Forty-seven Queensland councils sign charter to be small business friendly

Forty-seven out of 77 Queensland councils have signed on to be small business friendly through the Queensland Small Business Commissioner’s Small Business Friendly (SBF) Program, with more councils expected to follow suit in the coming months. 

The councils have committed to the SBF program, which provides the tools, framework and support required to help local governments, large enterprises and Queensland government agencies to realise their role when it comes to supporting small businesses, through signing the program charter.

Councils will also participate in an accelerator program, which is a set of self-supported tools and advice to help members put in place a strategy to improve their regions when it comes to small businesses.

Queensland Small Business Commissioner Dominique Lamb said the Small Business Friendly Charter is a document that is agreed to, signed, and adopted by local governments, the state government via the minister, the Queensland small business commissioner, and usually the local chamber/s or tourism associations in the local government area. 

“Being small business friendly is about recognising and considering small businesses as an important part of every community and the program focuses on four key areas including procurement, data, streamlining (or red tape reduction) and place-making,” the Commissioner said. 

“The program is designed to support all local government areas on their journey to being small business friendly and we have seen some incredible changes, implementations, and improvements across Queensland.”

The Commissioner confirmed that 47 of the 77 councils across Queensland have signed on and are representative of 96% of the 478,000 small businesses across Queensland. 

“There are more who are about to sign on in the coming months,” she said. 

“We aim to assist as many local councils as we can to work positively with their small business communities and the membership has been signed up to councils across all seven regions of Queensland including the far north.”

Through the accelerator program, the Commissioner’s office will work with council members via their economic development teams to adopt a five-step approach to being small business friendly including providing them with a blind spot assessment tool to get the best outcome possible for their region. 

Committed councils provide the Commissioner’s office with a report each year about their progress, and the initiatives they have implemented and provide information about the impacts of their efforts.

The Commissioner said the SBF charter has seen large councils reinvigorate and improve their planning departments, implement artificial intelligence, create new and improved relationships with their business community, and improve communication across the board. 

“Small business is the backbone of our economy nationally, contributing a third of our GDP, but more than that in remote and rural communities they are often solely responsible for food security, construction, and tourism,” she said. 

“Small businesses across Queensland do enormous things, despite having limited resources and a community that harnesses the power of its small business thrives. 

“The charter assists local governments who often have limited resources in economic development to leverage the experiences and know-how of our office and other councils to get a better outcome for their communities.”

The Commissioner added that the benefits of a council being small business friendly are limitless. 

“We have seen complaints in some instances go down from one complaint a day to one every month in planning departments,” she said.

“We have seen tech implemented where businesses can access geographically and industry-specific data at their fingertips, reduced licence costs and requirements, regular communication, the implementation of tech to help business find relevant grants and local governments regularly celebrating the small businesses in their communities and making sure they assist in relieving some of the loneliness and burn out that can come with being a small business owner.

“There are small business friendly programs run by each small business commissioner in each of the states across the country. All doing very different things and having a different focus. 

“The key is always to make sure that the community is involved, usually via their chamber to make sure that small business voices are heard when decisions are made.”