It is vital for councils to understand the economic role and function of their area and how this interacts with their residential and community services. This information is needed to develop housing and economic development strategies, as well as transport planning and local area promotion.
Historically however, economic profiling of Local Government areas has fallen short of council needs, largely due to a lack of clear objectives for profiling, disparate sources of information, inappropriate geography and a lack of accurate time series data.
Monash City Council recently overcame these issues and is believed to be the first municipality in Australia to register its economic footprint online.
Council partnered with a demographic profiling and forecasting company to create an online product designed to make economic information available to the wider community.
Located around 20 kilometres southeast of Melbourne CBD, Monash has significant commercial and industrial activity employing over 90,000 people.
Over time, knowledge of the local economy had been built up by monitoring commercial operations in the municipality. This knowledge was often based on observations, intuition, assumptions and anecdotal evidence.
Council was keen to better understand its business economy and to improve the information it is able to provide to potential investors.
The resulting product is an online tool that provides a snapshot of how the local economy is performing, identifies major industries and calculates their economic contribution to both the local and Victorian economy overall.
It provides information on where Monash residents go to work and localities where workers in the City of Monash come from. This information allows users to make decisions about business opportunities, markets and resources in Monash.
The economy.id data was compiled from the ABS Census and Journey to Work data, ABS Business Register, National Accounts data, REMPLAN input–output modelling and the Department of Employment local area labour statistics.
“A tool like this enables us to have relevant statistical information on hand quickly to verify our observations,” said Monash Mayor Paul Klisaris.
Council plans to offer free training sessions for local businesses as part of the Monash Business Network program later in the year.
To view the Monash economy.id® site visit www.monash.vic.gov.au
