Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill Briefing – November 2025
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- Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill Briefing – November 2025
In advance of Stage 1 debate on the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill, we have produced a briefing for MSPs which sets out our position and views on the Bill and suggested areas for amendment and debate.
We are supportive of the principles of the Bill and see it as an important opportunity to further community empowerment, build resilient local wellbeing economies and support a just transition to Net Zero.
However, we do see it as a lean and light touch framework and with that there is a risk that it will not place Community Wealth Building at the heart of Scotland’s economic transformation. The impact of the Bill will depend largely on whether other sectors can be brought into scope of the legislation, as well as the content and strength of the statement, guidance and action plans, and then in turn how they are implemented. Focusing exclusively on the public sector overlooks and fails to build upon the significant grassroots CWB practice already happening across Scotland. Scotland has a unique and resilient existing model of Community Wealth Building in community ownership. This secures local democratic control of building and assets, prevents economic leakage and ensures that wealth generated in local areas is circulated and multiplied within those same areas.
Central to this is the principle that CWB needs to be done by communities, for communities. A large part of the role of public bodies and local authorities should be to act as supportive enablers for communities to generate and retain community ‘wealth’ from the bottom-up, both for their benefit and in the wider public good.