This Bill was introduced by the Scottish Government on Wednesday 20 March 2025.

What does the Bill do?

Community Wealth Building (CWB) is an approach to economic development that tries to use the power of ‘anchor organisations’ to grow and retain wealth within a local economy.

Anchor organisations can be public, private, or third sector bodies that have a large enough presence in a local area to be able to change economic outcomes. These could include local authorities, the NHS, large private sector employers, universities and enterprise agencies.

Under the CWB approach, these types of organisations might, for example, use their spending power to procure locally, pay the real living wage, or facilitate community ownership of land or assets.

All of Scotland’s local authorities are currently working with their own CWB models. However, these are not always underpinned by formal plans and the extent of implementation varies.

The Scottish Government says the purpose of this Bill is to ensure that CWB is implemented consistently across Scotland as an economic development tool.

The Bill proposes to do three things:

• It would place a duty on the Scottish Ministers to publish a CWB statement which sets out the measures they will take to facilitate CWB.
• It would require local authorities and ‘relevant public bodies’ to publish and implement a CWB plan for their area.
• It would require ‘specified public bodies’ to have due regard to CWB guidance when developing their corporate plans and associated delivery strategies.

Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill – Scottish Parliament – Citizen Space