From an idea to legislation: the new CWB Bill

1 May 2025

Community Wealth Building has well and truly entered the conversation for all of us across Scotland who have in interest in developing and retaining wealth at a local level, supporting local community businesses and organisations and building a fair and inclusive economy. So it is fantastic news that in April the Scottish Government published the draft Community Wealth Building Bill and has asked for views in a public consultation which closes on Friday 23rd May 2025.

It really has the potential to change our economic landscape as it enshrines the five pillars of CWB in law for the Scottish Government itself by placing a duty on Scottish Ministers to publish a CWB statement which sets out the measures they will take to facilitate CWB. It would also require local authorities and named public bodies to publish and implement a CWB plan for their area. This means that the Economic Development Plans currently produced by local authorities must be underpinned by the principles of CWB. Of course how this is delivered and interpreted by each council area will influence the depth and breadth of how CWB is implemented.

The Scottish Parliament’s Economy and Fair Work Committee is keen to find out though if the Bill as written really will make a difference. From my perspective in Argyll and Bute whilst the Bill offers a great deal of flexibility for local flavours of CWB to be implemented it could be strengthened in the following ways:-

a. Enshrine the role of third and social enterprise sector organisations in the development of the local CWB plan and make them mandatory consultees. If the aim is to open up procurement to smaller organisations then surely our sector should be consulted as of right.

b. There is an opportunity to set a high standard for what a local anchor CWB plan should include and I would argue these should be specified as a minimum. So for instance whilst many local authorities publish the percentage of procurement contracts let locally many other public sector partners do not. Other important indicators to measure success might also be identified and could be standardised.

c. It is great that all relevant and specified public bodies should publish their actions plans but should this list also include housing associations if it is legal to do so?

d. Are there enough resources available to fully implement CWB – for instance to help develop the expertise at a local level to develop employee or community ownership models? And how will this work alongside public sector corporate plans and structures?

e. Finally is there a way to insert CWB principles into public sector contracts where they work on public infrastructure projects with the private sector such as for transport, housing, ICT, major construction projects (i.e. hospitals etc) and energy?

Let me know what you think and I can include your view as part of the TSI response or you can just add your opinion directly to answer the seven questions. Oban’s Neil McInroy has published an informative blog for EDAS which he chairs and it provides a useful perspective on the opportunities presented by the legislation.