ORANGE CITY COUNCIL
Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee
Agenda
7 November 2017
Notice is hereby given, in accordance with the provisions of the Local Government Act 1993 that a Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee meeting of ORANGE CITY COUNCIL will be held in the Council Chamber, Civic Centre, Byng Street, Orange on Tuesday, 7 November 2017.
Garry Styles
General Manager
For apologies please contact Michelle Catlin on 6393 8246.
Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee 7 November 2017
The provisions of Chapter 14 of the Local Government Act, 1993 (the Act) regulate the way in which Councillors and designated staff of Council conduct themselves to ensure that there is no conflict between their private interests and their public role.
The Act prescribes that where a member of Council (or a Committee of Council) has a direct or indirect financial (pecuniary) interest in a matter to be considered at a meeting of the Council (or Committee), that interest must be disclosed as soon as practicable after the start of the meeting and the reasons given for declaring such interest.
As members are aware, the provisions of the Local Government Act restrict any member who has declared a pecuniary interest in any matter from participating in the discussion or voting on that matter, and requires that member to vacate the Chamber.
Council’s Code of Conduct provides that if members have a non-pecuniary conflict of interest, the nature of the conflict must be disclosed. The Code of Conduct also provides for a number of ways in which a member may manage non pecuniary conflicts of interest.
Recommendation It is recommended that Committee Members now disclose any conflicts of interest in matters under consideration by the Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee at this meeting. |
TRIM REFERENCE: 2017/1955
AUTHOR: Kathy Woolley, Director Corporate and Commercial Services
EXECUTIVE Summary
This report provides Council with information from the Evocities campaign.
Link To Delivery/OPerational Plan
The recommendation in this report relates to the Delivery/Operational Plan strategy “11.1 Our Economy – Encourage the growth of local business, support emerging industry sectors and attract new investment to Orange”.
Financial Implications
Council contributed $70,000 for the 2017/18 membership.
Policy and Governance Implications
Nil
That Council note the Evocities 2016/17 outcomes and update on the 2017/18 program. |
further considerations
Consideration has been given to the recommendation’s impact on Council’s service delivery; image and reputation; political; environmental; health and safety; employees; stakeholders and project management; and no further implications or risks have been identified.
SUPPORTING INFORMATION
Evocities has supplied the following information for Council’s information.
Since its launch in September 2010, Evocities has recorded over 3,100 households as having relocated to one of the seven cities. The campaign has generated over 6,200 relocation enquiries; the Evojobs website has advertised over 37,000 local jobs, resulting in 2 million sessions on the site; and Evocities generated 2,694 media placements.
Evocities.com.au
Over 368,000 people have visited the Evocities website since its launch in September 2010. This past year (2016/17) saw the highest level of web traffic in the marketing campaign’s seven year history.
· Website traffic (sessions) to Evocities.com.au increased by 4% (98,130).
· 70,034 people visited the site and 70% of these people (49,023) were visiting the site for the first time.
· 67% of all Australian traffic originated from Sydney based locations.
· There was a significant increase from Melbourne sources – up by 9,685 sessions or 223%.
· 38% found the site through Organic Search (typing Evocities into a search engine) and Direct (typing Evocities.com.au into the address bar), up from 29% the previous year.
The Organic Search and Direct traffic is still making up a high percentage of all web sessions which indicates good brand awareness reinforced by the combination of Evocities’ traditional and digital advertising. Visitation from these two channels always represents the highest quality of traffic with time spent on the site always much higher than other sources.
Evojobs.com.au
The new Evojobs website went live in January 2017 and the site was officially launched in March. Merging the seven Evocities job sites into a single platform improved the site’s capabilities, expanded its reach and further enabled the site to be utilised in leveraging the availability of current jobs to attract skilled relocators. Radio and bus advertising for Evojobs.com.au resulted in both the Evocities and Evojobs website receiving increased traffic:
· There were 6,430 job vacancies listed in the 2016/17 year.
· The average number of jobs posted each month is 535.
· Since September 2010, there have been 37,783 job vacancies listed on the Evojobs site/s.
· Since the new site went live in January 2017 to June 2017, 41% of all users return to the site.
· The Evocities website pushed 11,692 sessions to the
Evojobs site over this 6 month period.
Public Relations and Media
In 2016/17 Evocities received a total of 30 national and metropolitan placements, and 107 regional media placements.
Website and Media Statistics:
Statistic |
2016/17 |
Total (cumulative) |
No. of sessions on evocities.com.au |
98,130 |
521,626 |
No. of sessions on evojobs.com.au |
272,874 |
2,000,211 |
No. of media placements |
137 |
2,707 |
Total potential audience reach |
17,262,430 |
135,026,677 |
Marketing
In July 2016 Evocities launched its new advertising campaign, which involved:
· Ambassador videos featured on YouTube and Facebook
· Radio advertising for three weeks in August 2016
· The radio campaign’s success was evident with a marked increase in website traffic with 5,348 sessions in the three weeks of the campaign from 14 August to 3 September 2016, which was an increase of 60.75% on the previous period, and the organic search traffic increased by 100% from 933 to 1866.
· Billboards installed at two major railway platforms in the Sydney CBD from the beginning of September 16 and advertising on two buses in the West Sydney area.
Social Media
Information below shows Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn outcomes for 2016/17.
· Facebook - The page made 4,326,112 impressions, 321,811 of these were organic. 58,041 post engagements were recorded, including 7,493 reactions and 998 comments.
· Twitter - The Evocities Twitter account received 93 mentions and its followers increased by 4.7% in the 2016/17 year. .
· LinkedIn - 866 engagements. In 2016/17 followers increased by 41.3% to 130.
Impact
In January 2012, research was conducted to estimate the economic benefits to the Evocities of attracting new residents. This research found that the relocated households had a median annual income of $90,000 to $100,000, which was above the adjusted median income of all the Evocities. It was reported that Evocities has the potential to lift the median incomes of the participating regional cities in the future, as it attracts higher-than-average income earners and those with professional qualifications and skills. In turn, the Evocities project has the potential to deliver a higher-than-average boost to overall economic activity in the participating regional cities, as these above-average incomes are spent in the regions and are further boosted by the multiplier effect.
Evocities began sending ‘Welcome Home to your new Evocity’ postcards to new residents in December 2016. Since this time, responses have been received from 152 households that have recently relocated to an Evocity. Details gained from the respondents have been useful in the organisation of welcome events and identifying potential case studies. Of the 152 relocators to date 30% said they were familiar with Evocities.
The Evoindex research conducted in March 2017 found:
· 66% of Sydneysiders have considered leaving Sydney with cost of housing and quality of life being the top two reasons.
· 48% of Sydneysiders spend anywhere between 31 mins to over 1.5 hours getting to work each day, while 88% of relocators get to work in less than 30 mins after moving.
· Only 34% of Sydneysiders felt a connection to their local community.
· 58% of Sydneysiders renting are paying over $400/wk. in rent compared to just 29% in 2010.
· 31% are paying over $500/wk., compared to just 12% in 2010. The average rent in an Evocity is $320/wk., 55% of relocators who were renting decreased their payment after relocating.
· 55% of Sydneysiders pay over $2000/month to their mortgage, up from 38% in 2010.
Statistic |
2016/17 |
Sep 2010 to Jun 2017 |
Number of families (households) who have relocated This figure represents the number of households who relocated to an Evocity and directly confirmed their move with that Evocity (through the Evocities website or with Council customer service for example). |
325 |
3,100 |
Number of families (households) indicating their intention to relocate |
329 |
1,805 |
Number of direct enquiries to councils from potential new residents |
717 |
6,251 |
Number of new resident / business / investment case studies submitted |
36 |
255 |
Australia Post Movers Data
Number of households who relocated to an Evocity according to Australia Post Movers Data:
Period |
Number |
July 2016 |
259 |
August 2016 |
273 |
September 2016 |
247 |
October 2016 |
227 |
November 2016 |
246 |
December 2016 |
333 |
January 2017 |
339 |
February 2017 |
275 |
March 2017 |
282 |
April 2017 |
206 |
May 2017 |
214 |
June 2017 |
186 |
Total for 2016/17 |
3,087 |
September 2010 to June 2017 |
30,029 |
2017/18 aCTIVITIES
NSW Government Funding - In July 2017 Evocities received a $300,000 grant under the NSW Government’s Regional Growth – Marketing and Promotion Fund. These funds will be used to reach a mass audience including Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra throughout July to December 2017.
The main activities will include:
· Radio advertising in Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra (four months, two stations per city) and traffic report and news bulletin sponsorship in Sydney through the Australian Traffic Network (ATN);
· Large scale billboards on M4 and M5 motorways (four months); and
· Digital advertising into Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane and Canberra using Facebook, YouTube, and search and display advertising.
· The billboards were installed and the ATN sponsorship commenced on 6 August 2017 and the radio ads began airing on 14 August 2017. Since this time the traffic to the Evocities and Evojobs websites saw instant increases in traffic and engagement.
The following statistics report the 31 days since the mass advertising commenced (6 Aug 17 to 5 Sep 17) compared to the previous period (6 Jul 17 to 5 Aug 17):
Statistic |
% Difference |
Month since advertising |
Month prior to advertising |
Evocities.com.au Sessions Users Pageviews Pages / Sessions Average Session Duration Bounce Rate Organic Search Direct |
37.00% 28.82% 62.20% 18.39% 71.74% -9.51% 209.44% 50.50% |
13,941 10,642 33,210 2.38 02:01 55.12% 5,771 3,293 |
10,176 8,261 20,475 2.01 01:10 60.91% 1,865 2,188 |
Evojobs.com.au Sessions Users Pageviews Pages / Sessions Average Session Duration Bounce Rate Organic Search Direct |
11.11% 13.77% 13.59% 2.24% 8.95% -0.45% 12.89% 24.57% |
38,083 24,573 74,141 1.95 01:34 70.91% 9,241 2,545 |
34,276 21,599 65,268 1.90 01:26 71.23% 8,186 2,043 |
Enquiries (through the Evocities website only) |
97.62% |
83 |
42 |
Marketing and Public Relations
· the Evocities image and video library will be refreshed and updated and new case studies will be gathered.
· Evocities PR is now run out of the secretariat from within Tamworth Regional Council. New PR initiatives include the use of Instagram and utilising the Evocities blog to refresh the Evocities.com.au homepage regularly. In addition to maintaining a presence in metropolitan and regional newspapers and other news outlets, there will be a specific and separate PR effort to secure coverage in lifestyle focused media.
Website Management
The Evojobs website is currently being set up to ‘scrape’ job listing from the Councils’ employment websites and this will continue with the linking of select major regional NSW employers.
Research - Evocities will conduct further research to acquire updated information such as the estimated contribution of each relocated household to the local economy, as well as the broader economic benefits to the Evocities of attracting new residents, encouraging business growth and even encouraging tourism and attracting visitors to the participating regional cities.
Attached in a summary of the Evocities research and survey information as supplied by the Evocities project officer.
In addition to the above information, Council sought further details on the marketing activities regarding advertising on motorway billboards. The schedule for these is attached for information.
1 Addendum - Evocities Research and Survey Summary 2006 - 2017, D17/52391⇩
2 Evocities Billboard Schedule August - November 2017, D17/62781⇩
Employment and Economic Development Policy Committee 7 November 2017
2.1 Evocities update
Attachment 1 Addendum - Evocities Research and Survey Summary 2006 - 2017