Our outreach strategy

Fair Trading supports local communities. We don’t wait for you to come to us – we go out to the community to deliver our services.

The Supporting local communities strategy 2012-2015 (PDF size 1.52mb) is Fair Trading's outreach strategy. This plan guides our commitment to ensuring many different communities have access to our services through the innovative use of mobile information delivery platforms, local education programs, information seminars, proactive compliance and enforcement activities, and outstanding customer service.

We understand that communities come in many different shapes and sizes. For instance, some communities are rural and have different needs than those that are city or town-based, while some communities exist online others have ethnic origins or centre around a school or a specific trade.

Our Supporting local communities strategy recognises these differing needs. The strategy is aimed at all traders and consumers in NSW. It has a strong focus on engaging with vulnerable consumers, such as young people, seniors, indigenous communities, people with a disability and people from culturally and linguistically diverse communities.

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The My Place program sees Fair Trading staff going out to meet and talk with consumers and traders in targeted communities and suburbs in NSW. Over several days they deliver:

• free information seminars for consumers and traders
• proactive compliance and enforcement activities, including product safety inspections
• other community liaison activities, such as liaising with retirement villages, libraries, child care centres and local indigenous groups

Go to the My Place program page for more information, including a list of locations where events will take place in 2013.

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Our community outreach strategy is based on four pillars:

Connecting with you
Our front line staff answer more than 1 million customer enquiries every year. We have an active social media presence on Facebook, Twitter and YouTube.

Educating consumers and traders
We offer free local community seminars to inform traders and consumers about their rights and responsibilities. More than 20,000 people attend our seminars every year.

Safeguarding your rights
We help enforce strong fair trading laws through proactive compliance checks in key industries and regular product safety inspections.

Empowering the people of NSW
Community grants, online resources and interactive smart phone apps enable customers to take action on fair trading issues in the local community.

Go to the Outreach activities page for more information about these activities.

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Fair Trading's I love my local business competition celebrated good business practices in NSW. The competition was part of our Supporting local communities outreach strategy and it ran on our Facebook page from 5 November 2012 to 2 December 2012.

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NSW Fair Trading is committed to supporting our seniors - people aged 50 plus - with up-to-date information about their consumer rights and how to deal with unscrupulous operators.

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