Community Wealth Building Bill

Boosting local economies. How can we grow what we aren’t measuring?

Early in 2025, the Scottish Government announced the world first Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill. This bill has reignited conversations around the opportunity that Community Wealth Building (CWB) could bring for Scotland and its people and places by enshrining into law new ways to build and retain wealth in our communities. This activity can support flourishing local economies, and considering SMEs make up 99.3% of all private sector businesses in Scotland there is a huge opportunity for this legislation to bolster their role in Scotland’s economic landscape.
“huge opportunity for this legislation”
CWB practices enable us to rethink and rewire our local economies around the people and places that they serve with the objective of increasing the flow, circulation and ownership of wealth. Using CWB, large public, private and third sector organisations (sometimes known as anchor institutions) working in collaboration can use their joint economic power including spend and employment to shine a light on how wealth and power leaks out of our economies, and how it can be redirected to benefit places. Traditionally CWB is delivered using five pillars, and for Federation of Small Businesses in Scotland (FSB) and their members, the procurement pillar is of particular interest.

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  • CWB Bill consultation: our response

    28 May. 2025

    • Can Community Wealth Building change the conversation?

    This article orignally appeared on the Reform Scotland blog.

    There has been some excitement in the Scottish policy landscape over the last few weeks with the introduction of (a long awaited) Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill. While it may not sound that exciting, as the first legislation of its kind in the world, this is actually a big deal.

    But what is Community Wealth Building, and why does it matter? I am going to use this article to set out the nuts and bolts, explore the implications of this new legislation and look to the future. First, though, I’ll explain who the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) are. CLES are the national organisation for local economies. We have been working for nearly 40 years supporting places to understand how they can make their local economies more resilient. We pioneered the development of Community Wealth Building in the UK, following on from work in the US and, nowadays, we work across the UK and Europe to support places to take a Community Wealth Building lens to their local economies. We work with places to instigate and enable change and are proactive in supporting them to develop economic strategies and activities which suit their challenges and opportunities and which deliver for their people. Here in Scotland we have been active for many years as Community Wealth Building has become more established, first in our places and now in government legislation.
    “economic growth alone cannot be relied on”
    Before I get into Community Wealth Building, I’ll set the scene for why we need to take a new approach. We have an economy which currently prioritises economic growth, delivered via external private capital. We are told that more growth will reduce inequality and pay for public services. Yet, despite our relentless pursuit of growth, in recent decades the UK has seen dramatic rises in poverty levels, business uncertainty and an escalating climate crisis. It is clear, then, that economic growth alone cannot be relied on to tackle these issues.

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    Scottish policy and practice update: Dec 24

    This update is part of a regular series of rundowns of policy developments and reports on our work in Scotland, by CLES Senior Researcher and Scotland lead, Naomi Mason.

    Looking back, looking forwards and taking stock

    As I near my one-year anniversary of joining CLES as our lead for Scotland, I’ve been looking back at what has happened over the last 12 months. It has been quite a year, with political turbulence in Holyrood, Westminster and across the world, not to mention the continued global instability in our climate and economies. So – as the Scottish Budget was announced last week – I couldn’t help but reflect on both how interlinked we all are and how our local economies are profoundly impacted by global change.
    “power and politics are fundamental to change”
    I’m reminded that, by building flexibility, community wealth building makes our places stronger and more resilient to the fluctuations of wider economic systems. But this takes time, effort and persistence. It also takes political will and power. I’ve previously written about the opportunity that the forthcoming community wealth building legislation could bring to Scotland, and the many forms of power which our rural communities can tap into, or struggle against, so I won’t labour the points here. Suffice to say, power and politics are fundamental to change.
    “bringing power from Holyrood down to our local places”
    What we don’t talk about often enough, however, is the relinquishing of power. When we talk about devolution, transferring power away from Westminster to the nations or regions of the UK, we often focus on that first step away from the centre. What we talk less about is the stages beyond. Often, bringing power from Holyrood down to our local places seems to be a step too far here in Scotland. There were high hopes for this to happen over the last 25 years of the Scottish parliament, but how well it has truly benefited Scotland’s local democracy is not clear, a point which was beautifully articulated by Bill Howat in an article published last week. And there is a further question: even if power had reached our councils to a greater degree…what then? Are they even the best mechanism for delivering local democracy and decision making? Opinions differ. According to the results of a Democracy Matters consultation earlier this year, the answer is no: there is an appetite for more community-led decision making and power.

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    Scottish policy and practice update: Sept 24

    This update is part of a regular series of rundowns of policy developments and reports on our work in Scotland, by CLES Senior Researcher and Scotland lead, Naomi Mason.

    The good, the bad and the opportunities

    Last week was a busy one for policy and fiscal announcements in Scotland. Tuesday morning started positive, with the launch of Developing Scotland’s Economy: Increasing the role of inclusive and democratic business models, a report committed to in the National Strategy for Economic Transformation. But later that day the fiscal pre-budget announced budget cuts and difficult economic decisions around public spend, while Wednesday saw the launch of the 2024-25 Programme for Government (PfG). As the title of this blog indicates, the three announcements produced quite a mixed bag of policy and legislation and there was a lot for those of us concerned with the future economy of Scotland to digest over the weekend.
    “Scotland could soon claim a world first”
    Starting with the positive, we at CLES are delighted to see community wealth building legislation coming forward in the PfG. Scotland could soon claim a world first by delivering this ground-breaking legislation which supports a framework for economic development practices which challenges economic extraction and supports local economies to flourish. If this legislation can unlock opportunities for Scotland’s SMEs to bid for public sector contracts, as well as making it easier for those in the third sector to undertake them too, then the economic opportunity to encourage wealth to flow to our local places will become far easier.

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    Building Community Wealth in Scotland

    Our response to the Scottish Government’s consultation

    As Sarah Longlands shared at the end of March, we have been delighted to be able to work with partners and friends across Scotland over the last few months to understand their views on the Government’s proposals for a Community Wealth Building Bill.

    This legislations would be a powerful step forward in enabling the democratisation of our economy and would be progressive global first – that it could happen so close to home is immensely exciting. The government’s consultation closed on Tuesday this week and below we share our responses to the questions posed. We would be delighted to hear your thoughts too – please do get in touch if you would like to discuss any aspects of our response, the items under consultation or the development of community wealth building in Scotland or anywhere else.

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    Midnight in Edinburgh with Adam Smith

    It was midnight and raining as I walked up a deserted Royal Mile in Edinburgh ahead of our event to discuss the Scottish Government’s proposed legislation for community wealth building. Out of the gloom, standing in front of a moody St Giles’ Cathedral was Adam Smith (well, his statue at any rate!).

    Often credited as the father of modern economics and a proponent of self-interest characterised as “the invisible hand”, Smith was just as passionate about morality. 20th century economists, of course, made sure to keep the morality out of economics and we are all (quite literally) the poorer for it.
    “we need to change our economic system so that it works in the interests of people”
    Smith’s understanding of economics as a social rather than a mathematical science was a revelation to me when I was studying at The University of Glasgow. But Adam Smith was only the beginning of my enlightenment – I have since been lucky enough to learn from economists across the world who also believe we need to change our economic system so that it works in the interests of people, rather than the other way around.

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