Working with Council

creatives Working with council

There are some straightforward rules to apply when you’re thinking about applying to a creative gig or listed opportunity on the Creative Ballarat website - and once you know the expectations it becomes easier to clearly respond to opportunities. This page of advice has been developed in direct response to questions from our creative sector. If there are areas or questions that you think this information doesn’t cover, please just drop us a note and we can consider adding it in!

The City of Ballarat is guided by our Procurement Policy. This outlines our responsibility to handle all financial issues with the required amount of transparency and accountability. The Procurement Policy protects the City of Ballarat Council Officers and it protects you, as potential suppliers and vendors to the city. We use this document as a guide to ensure impartiality and the application of best practice.

THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN A ‘REQUEST FOR QUOTE’ AND AN ‘EXPRESSION OF INTEREST’

There are two different ways in which the Arts & Culture Unit primarily puts out call-outs for creatives, artists, makers and others through the Creative Ballarat website. These are either requests for quotes or inviting expressions of interest.

A Request for Quote (RFQ) specifically asks applicants to provide a cost in response to what the brief is looking for. You should expect an RFQ to have a clear brief of work and requirements, and you will be asked to provide a clear budget in response. You are being asked to tell us “how much will you charge to complete this specific work?” Generally we will have a budget in mind as to the amount of money that is allocated to complete the work, but sometimes we are not in a position to share it. So we are looking for your best assessment of how much you will charge for completing the work.

An Expression of Interest (EOI) is an invitation for applicants to let us know if they are interested in being considered for the creative work, and they are asked to demonstrate their suitability by explaining their process, their experience and their knowledge of a specific area in response to a supplied brief. It might be that a project requires a mix of different creative skills and knowledge, and the EOI is seeking groups of people to put themselves forward. In this instance we want to know who is interested in doing the work, and what kinds of skills make them right for the gig.

In no instance should you be asked to supply creative concepts or offer your intellectual property up as part of the process.

HOW IS A SUCCESSFUL CANDIDATE SELECTED?

Under both processes of a Request for Quote on an Expression of Interest a similar selection panel model may be followed. The Creative City Unit will establish a panel of internal officers (and external people if appropriate) to decide upon the successful candidate. This panel reviews and independently scores each submission a mark out of 5 against the publicly available selection criteria. An additional weighting is given to those who live in the Ballarat region. A successful candidate is selected and the unsuccessful candidates are advised.

The unsuccessful candidates can receive feedback on their submission - but not receive information about any other candidate.

becoming a vendor with the city

Everyone who provides a service to the City of Ballarat needs to be registered as a vendor.

In order to be a vendor, you will be asked if you have an Australian Business Number (ABN). It’s pretty straightforward to secure an ABN, you just need to work out if you need one to operate a business or if you don’t need it because you’re an individual or sole trader.

If you aren’t going to need an ABN because you’re trading as yourself, then Council needs you to declare this through completing a form called Statement by a Supplier Not Quoting an ABN. Fill in the form online and generate a copy as a PDF.

So, now you either have an ABN or you have a completed copy of the Statement by a Supplier Not Quoting an ABN.

Now you need to complete the vendor form and email it to aps@ballarat.vic.gov.au

Getting a purchase order

Now you have your Letter of Agreement and you’ve signed it, and you have a Vendor Number. You’ll be issued with a Purchase Order Number that correlates to the job you’re doing for us. This number confirms the work you’re doing and states how much you are going to invoice the Council for once the work is done. This is sent through to you via email from your appropriate Council Officer. You’ll know it’s a Purchase Order number because it starts with BACC-xxxxxxx.

issuing invoices

Everyone needs to get paid! The City of Ballarat has 30 day payment terms, and we can only approve the payment of your invoice once we’ve received the itemised ‘deliverables’ from your Letter of Agreement. If we believe you have satisfactorily completed the delivery of the goods and services we will ask you to send us an invoice.

But what if you’ve never sent an invoice before?

Here’s a sample.

You’ll need to make sure your invoice has:

• Your ABN or a statement that you’re a sole trader and not declaring an ABN

• The name of your business

• An invoice number (it might be the first ever invoice you’ve sent, so make it 0001!)

• Clearly state if you’re declaring the GST or not

• Your full name and address

• Your purchase order number which starts with BACC-xxxxx

• Ensure the bank account you list is the same one you provided to Council as a vendor

Got any further Questions?

We can help. We know it can be a little daunting to start trading in your creative enterprise, but the Creative City team can support you every step of the way. Simply drop us a note and let us know what you need.