What is the Community Wealth Building Bill?

The Community Wealth Building Bill aims to establish a strategic framework for Scottish economic development, that centres on retaining, circulating and generating wealth within local communities.

It builds on policy actions already underway in Scotland, including sustainable procurement, fair work, community empowerment and asset transfer.

At SCAPE Scotland, our frameworks support the consistent implementation of the Community Wealth Building model of economic development by public sector anchor organisations.

The Community Wealth Building strategy in Scotland is designed to support economic development and address wealth inequality by ensuring that local communities benefit from the wealth produced within their respective regions.

Key Objectives

There are five Community Wealth Building Pillars, which align with SCAPE Scotland’s core values and mission to create lasting social impact.

1. Spending

This pillar aims to maximise community benefits through procurement and commissioning, developing good enterprises, and utilising local supply chains. It considers how to maximise local spend in construction by directing spend to locally rooted organisations, which enables SMEs to scale up.

At SCAPE Scotland, we set minimum standards for both local labour and local spend. This ensures that the local community directly benefits from employment opportunities and more of the budget is retained.

2. Workforce

This objective places importance on increasing fair work and developing local labour markets that support the wellbeing of communities.

It spans from proactive approaches to gender pay, equity, diversity, and inclusion, to tackling skills development in Scotland with skill investment plans.

3. Land and Property

The third pillar aims to increase the social, ecological, financial and economic value that local communities gain from land and property assets.

This can be achieved through reinvestment and strategic investment initiatives, such as:

• social funds to support community projects,
• providing seed funding to unlock and facilitate the development of land and assets for public benefit.

4. Inclusive Ownership

This objective aims to encourage the growth of local and social businesses that contribute to community wealth creation, including social enterprises, employee-owned organisations, and cooperatives. These businesses typically reflect democratic ownership principles and reinvest in communities.

SCAPE Scotland has also signed the Buy Social Pledge, helping social enterprise organisations to grow their revenues.

5. Finance

The fifth and final pillar seeks to enhance the flow of local investment, ensuring that financial institutions work for local people, communities and businesses.

SCAPE Scotland’s Fair Payment Standard ensures that the supply chain is paid promptly and in full, supporting the health and resilience of SMEs and local suppliers.

Our SCAPE Scotland framework delivery partners have signed a Community Legacy Charter that outlines their combined commitment to maximising positive outcomes for clients, the wellbeing of their communities and future generations. Together, we are actively contributing to Scotland’s Community Wealth Building Agenda.

Communities must be able to shape how Community Wealth Building manifests itself at a local level. In order to achieve that, Community Wealth Building – whether through legislation, or the way in which it is practiced and processed – must be cross-cutting, and take primacy of Scotland’s priorities.