The Victorian Government undertakes a number of programs to assist people with low incomes to improve their quality of life, including the Good Shepherd Buying Service, the Home Wise appliance and infrastructure grant and the Water Wise program.

With the latest corporate responsibility initiative, the Department of Human Services is seeking to implement a Public Housing Tenants’ Benefit Scheme, which will ideally offer the following services to public housing tenants at a discount:

• electricity,
• gas,
• telephone,
• internet, and
• commercial television services (satellite and cable).

A two-stage process for the Public Housing Tenants’ Benefit Scheme is currently being implemented, as follows:

(i) A Registration of Interest (RoI) stage, which is intended to:

gauge market interest; and

assist in the development of the project’s parameters and requirements; and

(ii) Request for Tender(s) may be issued, depending on the response to the RoI.

If tender(s) are issued, successful companies will be given the opportunity to submit proposals to offer discounted services to public housing tenants in exchange for access to a one-way pre-defined communication channel with around 65,000 Victorian public housing households.

The project also represents an excellent corporate social responsibility initiative.

This discount is intended to be over and above what would normally be offered in the marketplace to general consumers. Public housing tenants eligible for the discounts must receive the same level of service as customers paying the standard rate.

DHS is not providing a financial or ‘take-up rate’ guarantee to companies. DHS is not seeking to buy-in services to then on-sell to tenants to public housing tenants. The suppliers who win any subsequent tender(s) will sign an overarching contract with DHS specifying the discounts offered, but individual agreements will be signed between the successful companies and individual tenants.

Innovative proposals from any of the nominated sectors are encouraged, as are partnerships, especially corporate-non-government sector partnerships.

The Public Housing Tenants’ Benefit Scheme is intended to be a flagship corporate social responsibility initiative of the Victorian Government, and will be actively promoted as such to the wider community. DHS is seeking to develop joint Government-industry promotional and branding opportunities, which will enable successful companies to market their Public Housing Tenants’ Benefit Scheme initiatives.

The Registration of Interest (reference E0926) can be found at the Victorian Government tenders website at www.tenders.vic.gov.au

For further information, please contact the project manager, Georgina Grundy at:

georgina.grundy@dhs.vic.gov.au