Chamber and committees

We need to unpick that a wee bit. The language that is used is that each local authority and “relevant public bodies” must prepare a community wealth building action plan. The list of relevant public bodies involves big bodies, such as colleges, health boards and economic development agencies. Then there is the list of bodies that must give “due regard”, which is another list of constituted public bodies. However, as you rightly identify, it is not about formalising community engagement in the process. Lorna Slater also made a point about community engagement.

There is a question about how that could be formalised, and I would be interested to take views on it. I will ask officials to comment on whether it has been considered. We must recognise that the level of development of community organisations across the country is variable, whether those are community groups, community councils or whatever, so the process by which we engage them will obviously have to be flexible to take account of that. However, I absolutely take on board your point. If we are going to have something that will work in a local authority area, engagement with those whom we are seeking to support is hugely important. Local authorities could and should take that forward as well, but the picture there will, of course, be variable, too.

Have we done any thinking on that, Stephen?

That is always a danger, and we need work to make sure that it does not happen. Designing the legislation correctly is important in that regard. That goes back to the point that Lorna Slater made about how to measure and evaluate. We are certainly open to considering how that could be done in a way that would work. It is also not just about the local authority and the relevant partners but about all the other public bodies on the longer list and the money that they spend in the local community.

Stephen, do you have any thoughts to add on how we developed our thinking around that?

Through procurement activity, there is a lot of focus on breaking up those big contracts into lots through the work of the supplier development programme. Recently, I was at a very well-attended conference at which there was an emphasis on and momentum behind getting local suppliers engaged in that process. I have also been at round tables with groups of SMEs from around the country to hear at first hand about the challenges that they have in accessing public sector procurement. A lot is already happening in that space.

It then comes down to what is being built. A local authority or health board in a rural area will have its own focus. A large-scale construction project will allow engagement with only a limited number of people, but work is already in place to support how that cascades down through the tiers when it comes to the fair work and local content agenda, and so on. There is a lot in that—and the bill will give it more emphasis—that will help to move things along.

Where is this going? [Laughter.]

I would need to be careful not to cut across existing procurement legislation in that space. Having two sets of procurement law could be complicated and create confusion.

It is important to understand how much the bill can do for communities and localities, but we have made huge progress in that area during the past 10 years, and the stats show that. There is a way to go, of course—there always is—but it is not true to say that we are starting from ground zero. We want to ensure that anything that we create builds on the work that is already happening on procurement activity and existing legislation.

I am therefore not sure that we would want to do that in the bill. I am not saying that we will not do it, but we are very conscious that we already have legislation on the matter. That legislation might need to be changed—we have talked about thresholds that could be changed without legislation and so on—and I am happy to consider that, but I need to be careful to find the right vehicle for it.

There is scope to do that and it should absolutely be considered. I will be spending time in the next few weeks engaging with more partners to understand their views. The bill gives a platform and impetus to community wealth building, and it corrals the energy that already exists around it.

From a technical point of view, you are probably right, but I would need to check that ministerial direction would cover everything. The requirement on ministers to take that approach is not there; we would need to put that requirement on ourselves. I suppose that the bill future proofs that by specifying exactly what is in statute and, therefore, putting a lot more weight behind it. However, I take your point on board.

That is a broader question. I have a lot of sympathy with the point that you make. I have spent many happy hours rewriting official or Government documents to remove much of that language. For example, there should be a limit on the number of verbs that you can have in a sentence, and we should probably ban certain phrases—“in due course” is one that springs to mind. That would be a separate exercise that would have much broader applicability than simply what we are talking about today, but I have a lot of sympathy with that point.

It depends on what you want to look at. In the procurement space, we have tonnes of data. Every public body produces a report each year and there is a consolidated report that pulls all of that together for the 100-and-whatever-it-is public bodies on what they have spent, where they spent it and who they spent it with.

On the metrics discussion, if there are other areas in which we are clear on what we should be measuring and we want to have a reporting mechanism for that, we should consider the most effective way to do that. However, we must always remember that we do not want to put too much of a burden on public bodies or communities by requiring them to spend all their time collecting data and reporting on things. It is a balance.

I take that point. The financial memorandum covers the aspects of the bill that will be required by law. In relation to taking forward that agenda, if you look at how public bodies spend their money and at their focus on delivering best value, you will see benefits in the round. That applies to the whole system. The whole point of the bill is that there will be economic benefits, economic development and economic activity as a consequence of public bodies taking those actions, so there will be more value in the system in its entirety.

Clearly, the changes that public bodies would have to make would depend on what was in the action plans. If they just decided to redirect, from one place to another, the procurement spend that they would have spent anyway, the effect might be minimal.

I take on board the point about monitoring and evaluation, and we should perhaps reflect on that in relation to the FM. I do not know whether Stephen White wants to comment on that.

That is a good point. I will ask officials to talk about the detail of that. The first question is how we define “community”. We could do so by referring to local authorities, but they are part of the process and are at the core of community wealth building. If by “community” we mean more local communities, such as neighbourhoods, there are no mechanisms in place to enable evaluation to take place at that level to the extent that we might want. That is part of the broader agenda of the democracy matters work that I am taking forward separately. There is a lot of crossover with the work on community wealth building.

We are happy to consider how we measure how successful community wealth building projects have been for communities. I will let officials talk about the specifics. We would need to do quite a bit of thinking about what mechanism we could use to enable communities to hold people to account.