The Flagstaff Group has won a $400,000 contract with the NSW Family and Community Services Department and is negotiating for big Federal Government tenders.

The non-profit Wollongong printer that employs people with disabilities, won the contract on a competitive tender after having held it for the past three years. The term is one year with the option of another two.

Flagstaff will print and distribute forms, business cards, brochures, compliment slips, and printed envelopes on an on-demand basis using its stable of offset and digital machines.

Chief executive Roy Rogers says on-demand is becoming a big focus of his company’s printing operations, and uses an XMPie web-to-print system for the Department to send orders and artwork for fast turnaround jobs.

“This is a major contract for us and we are hoping to do more of them at this lower volume, on-demand end of the market,” he says. Rodgers says the contract was won on a strictly commercial basis.

[Related: More printers getting government work]

Flagstaff will subcontract the distribution to another Disability Enterprise in NSW, Richmond PRA, which employs mentally ill people on their way to recovery. Flagstaff works with the National Disability Service to facilitate such partnerships.

Rogers says employing people with disabilities, and collaborating with other such organisations, helped Flagstaff win the contract as it generates a social return for the government while still being competitively priced.

“These are people who wouldn’t otherwise have jobs and would be drawing disability pensions, so we are giving back to the community and increasing workforce participation rates,” he says.

Rogers says the company is negotiation with the federal Departments of Social Services and Human Services about similar contracts and is hoping deals can be struck soon.

He says Flagstaff is assessing what it is able to print at a commercially competitive rate and what jobs might be appropriate.

“We do not want to compete with Blue Star and so on for multimillion dollar jobs, but smaller on-demand work we can do effectively,” he says.

Flagstaff also produces fencing, packaging, gloves, food, coffee, and various other products and services. Some 275 employees, 75 per cent of its staff, have disabilities.

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