Fraser Coast Regional Council: Commitment to Safety and Innovation

The Fraser Coast Regional Council is located in the Wide Bay Burnett region of south-east Queensland, approximately 250 kilometers north of Brisbane. The Council covers an area of approximately 7,117 square kilometers.

With an estimated population of 117,940 and growing, they are a Council serious about their corporate strategy and their commitment to social services support delivery.

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Corporate Strategy and Workforce Commitment

One of their key statements of intent being to support an engaged and agile workforce.

“Fraser Coast Regional Council is committed to attract, engage and retain the best people, empowering their capable workforce and volunteers to serve and support community, now and into the future”.

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Workplace Health and Safety Initiatives

To achieve its goals of improved workplace health and safety and become an employer of choice, Fraser Coast Regional Council actively provides its employees with the tools and support they need to feel empowered and safe.

Fraser Coast Regional Council’s Organisational Services Director, Keith Parsons is committed to Council’s goals and strategic plan, seeing that innovation is a key part to ensuring deliverables are met in the most efficient manner:

“Locatrix is enabling Council to provide a safe work environment by improving and better managing its emergency procedures through the utilisation of Locatrix as a digital and centralised system.”

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Partnership with Locatrix

Since 2009 Locatrix and Fraser Coast Regional Council have worked together to create, maintain and improve workplace safety with PlanSafe, Locatrix’s online safety induction, fire emergency management program.

Fraser Coast Regional Council has implemented PlanSafe across 42 of their sites. They use it to deliver General and First Response Evacuation Instruction and Emergency Control Organisation (ECO) training to their workforce of over 1000 staff. The Council understands that generic online systems cannot meet the site-specific requirements outlined in the Queensland Building Safety Regulation: 2008. However, PlanSafe's customisable solution effectively addresses these needs.

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Keith Parsons explains:

“Council has used the platform’s ability to customise to different locations, to increase the sites using a digital instead of paper-based induction. The ability to customise to different locations means our employees can easily complete inductions for multiple Council sites if required.”

“Locatrix provides Council with a visual, easy to use and accessible platform to manage emergency and fire safety induction, annual training and compliance.”  

PlanSafe is easy for anyone to use, accessible from anywhere anytime from any device. Staff, volunteers and contractors can log onto their chosen site and complete their site-specific safety induction within 30 minutes.

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Collaboration for best results

Locatrix collaborates closely with customers like Fraser Coast Regional Council, and it's their valuable feedback that has directly driven the development of key features, such as the Compliance Dashboard. This dashboard provides a real-time view of compliance with the Queensland Building Fire Safety Regulation 2008, ensuring building operators, owners, and tenants are well-prepared for Queensland Fire Department's (QFD) Maintenance Inspection Reports (MIR)."

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Locatrix's bigger picture for a Safer Community

Locatrix is committed to keeping people safe through its technology, which extends to first responders like the Queensland Fire Department (QFD). This commitment has driven the development of the Emergency Services Platform (ESP), which securely shares floor plan data, including that from Fraser Coast Regional Council's sites, directly into QFD's GIS software so they can make rapid and informed decisions, enhancing emergency response capabilities for communities like Fraser Coast Regional Council.  

“The original goal for Locatrix has not changed, always its intent has always been to improve the visibility for First Responders so that they can access the most up to date and accurate floor plans for the buildings that they are assigned to protect”

John Hummelstad CEO Locatrix

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In 2024 Locatrix was awarded the 2024 Geospatial Excellence Award for the Emergency Services Platform.  The Geospatial Council of Australia recognised and praised the pilot program it has delivered to QFD, QPS, NSW Police and Victoria Police, providing a secure data feed to these emergency service agencies for all buildings mapped with PlanStudio, the input tool used to collect data for PlanSafe.

“It was something I’d only ever seen in movies and as a professional in the field I knew didn’t really exist. But here and now and in reality Locatrix had found the know-how and the business model to make this happen, the science fiction is now a reality and even better, Locatrix has the recipe to keep it current”

‍Lee Johnson AFSM, Retired Commissioner QFD.

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Locatrix is incredibly appreciative of the partnership it has with Fraser Coast Regional Council and looks forward to supporting it with its growth and commitment to safety.