Knox City Council: Social Enterprise Mapping and Social Procurement Market Analysis

Knox City Council wanted to understand its local social enterprise landscape and explore how to embed social procurement into everyday operations. Social procurement in local government holds real potential – not just for spending money with social benefit suppliers, but for generating local employment, supporting community enterprises and demonstrating that good procurement and good community outcomes are not mutually exclusive. For a council in the early stages, this was the right place to start: map what is available, understand the baseline and build a platform for informed action.

Early research revealed a relatively low concentration of social enterprises within the Knox municipality itself. That finding could have been a limiting one, but it raised a more useful question: if the goal was real social procurement, why stop at the municipal boundary? The relevant geography was the regional market Council could actually buy from.

I led a social enterprise mapping and market analysis through Social Traders that expanded beyond Knox to neighbouring municipalities, building a richer picture of the regional social enterprise ecosystem. This included developing a comprehensive supplier directory with details on goods, services, social purpose, beneficiary groups and geographic reach, along with a visual map to help Council identify potential suppliers. I also delivered a social procurement workshop for Council staff and local businesses, and conducted a current state analysis through interviews with Council officers to assess procurement readiness, awareness and existing barriers.

The project gave Knox City Council a clear and actionable foundation for social procurement. It delivered a baseline assessment of social procurement maturity, tailored recommendations to strengthen procurement practices, financial modelling showing the potential to increase social procurement spend by 8,500% over four years, and job creation modelling estimating up to 23 employment opportunities for people experiencing disadvantage. That kind of evidence base and supplier intelligence gave Knox City Council something concrete to act on - a clear picture of what was available, what was possible and where to start.

If you're at a council or public body in the early stages of social procurement and you need a clear picture of what's possible and where to start, this kind of mapping and analysis is a practical first step. I'd be glad to talk through how to approach it.