Celebrating our achievements

On Tuesday 26 May, GROW Gippsland held its first Scorecard event, celebrating the achievements of the program and its 73 Compact Members.

Not only did the event showcase the achievements of the GROW Gippsland project over the past 18 months, but Member for Eastern Victoria, Harriet Shing MP, announced a new digital portal to help connect and support businesses and jobseekers in Gippsland.

The new portal provides our 70+ Compact member organisations with one easy place to access resources which will support their commitment to redirect spending back into Gippsland and employing inclusively.

The portal is part of the state-wide GROW portal which has a presence across Victoria, including Gippsland, Geelong, Bendigo, Ballarat and Shepparton.

The program is already seeing signs of success, with 35 Compact members reported having offered job opportunities to priority jobs seekers including young people, Aboriginal people and people with a disability, while a further 26 have offered work placement opportunities.

Latrobe Valley Authority CEO, Karen Cain, said GROW Gippsland was part of a long-term strategy to transition the community and economy.

“We are pleased to see early signs that the changes made by Compact Members are having a huge collective impact for our region,” Ms Cain explained.

“GROW Gippsland is continuing to work with both local organisations and ones with significant contracts in the region to ensure their spend contributes to the Gippsland economy.”

Reporting across the programs range of measures indicates that our members are delivering upon the objectives of the GROW Gippsland Compact with the Scorecard revealing 97 per cent of Compact members had developed an individual Action Plan, with 63 per cent of actions either complete or in progress. Of these actions, 64 per cent of Compact members were undertaking inclusive employment actions and 53 per cent had implemented actions to increase local supplier engagement.

Ms Shing described GROW Gippsland as a “game-changer for Gippslanders”, but don’t just take her word for it. Hear from some of our Compact members and their experiences with the project in this video.

See the Scorecard here.