The Small Business Friendly Councils program is a new initiative of the Office of the Small Business Commissioner, which has partnered with the NSW Business Chamber to increase the number of councils working and engaging proactively with small businesses.

The program is a first for Australia and gives local councils willing to make small business a priority the opportunity to be recognised as ‘Small Business Friendly’.

So far 35 councils have signed-up to be Small Business Friendly and Forbes Shire Council resolved at their November council meeting to register their interest and delegate the mayor and general manager to sign the charter and for executive staff to develop an implementation plan.

General manager Brian Steffen said the idea is to formalise council’s commitment to small businesses.

“It’s not anything that we’re not doing already...I think we’re doing well in promoting small business but this is a way to formalise it,” he said.

The program is designed to improve the overall business climate for small businesses in NSW and to raise awareness of the difference that local government can make by working proactively with small business.

Councils who sign up to the program commit to a charter which sets out a number of benchmarks that council agrees to meet to foster and support small businesses in the area.

As part of the program, Forbes Shire Council will commit to implementing five Small Business Friendly Council initiatives including an integrated planning and reporting framework; a public commitment from the mayor and general manager; dispute resolution to refer small business disputes to the Dispute Resolution Unit of the Office of the NSW Small Business Commissioner; a business advisory board; and a customer service charter and service standard.

There are more than 689,000 small businesses in NSW which will welcome the initiative to improve their dealings with local government.

Forbes Business Chamber president, Stuart Thomas said their relationship with Forbes Shire Council is already a positive one but this will help cement it. 

He said Forbes Shire Council already implement many of the strategies required of a Small Business Friendly Council.

“By and large, that has already been happening,” Mr Thomas said. “This is about endorsing a relationship that’s already there.

“It’s a great initiative and great that council recognise the importance of small business.”