How does a City, community or municipality achieve these aims? In a market economy, local authorities make only a minority of regional economic investment decisions, the rest are made by the private sector or by State or Federal Governments. Nevertheless supportive planning, land zoning, marketing, advisory policies, and a well thought out and aspirational strategy can be a trigger to dynamic development from relative small but well leveraged investments. The OECD (2006) reports that areas where governments are most involved, are in ICT skills and employment development, broadband provision and competition in ICT markets. Policy areas where government is showing increasing interest include technology diffusion to business, trust on line, specific government development projects and intellectual property rights. At a national level, the regulatory environment is also an important consideration.

The City of Ballarat needs to act as a catalyst and challenger for the local ICT sector. It needs to encourage - or even push - companies to raise their aspirations and move to higher levels of competitive performance. Government cannot create competitive industries - only companies can do that.

The specific levers Local Government, in collaboration with other public bodies, can use include:

... and listening to the community to identify its future role.