Chamber and committees

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.

Thank you very much, convener, and good morning, committee. I am delighted to be here and to take over responsibility for the bill from my colleague Tom Arthur. The synergies are strong between the bill and the work that I am already taking forward across the wider public service reform agenda, so I am delighted to have it in my portfolio.

In leading this work, I aim to connect the economic dimension with key elements in my portfolio, including procurement, planning, community empowerment and, of course, the PSR strategy. As I am new to this, in answering your questions, I am keen to listen to ideas and views that are influenced by the significant number of responses to the committee’s call for evidence.

Community wealth building is about making local economies work better for people and communities. If money flows into and is kept in an area, whether through investment in local business growth, more good jobs or profits being reinvested locally, new opportunities are created and more wealth is retained.

Several key questions came up as the legislative proposals were being developed, and I will touch on three of those.

The first is a question that I have asked myself—do we need legislation? There are already good examples of local authorities and other organisations across the country delivering impressive results through their implementation of community wealth building, and the financial memorandum was informed by investment information from local authorities, whose staff—along with public servants in the national health service and other areas—have, to a large extent, driven community wealth building. Focused, proportionate and enabling legislation has the potential to amplify the impact and contribute to the operation of Scotland’s economy.

The second question is about the purpose of the bill. Collaboration and the consistent application of community wealth building can help to maximise the combined impact of public spending, ensuring that all local and wider regional economies benefit. That is why the bill focuses on the creation of a new and consistent platform to underpin a formal public sector-led partnership approach to local economic development. The bill also provides for the development of guidance that will be co-produced with key partners and informed by current good practice.

The final question is about getting the balance right between local flexibility and national consistency. Local partners and communities are best placed to understand the challenges and opportunities in their areas, which is why the bill gives local authorities and other public bodies the flexibility to develop and implement meaningful actions to meet local needs. Care has been taken to ensure that the advancement of community wealth building in the public policy landscape is light touch and that it complements existing partnerships and policy in linked areas.

The bill is very much about looking forward and laying foundations for an economic development format that sees every public pound as having economic agency. The public sector needs to lead the agenda while working in partnership with businesses, the third sector and communities. Securing in statute our commitment to community wealth building has the potential to support local economic development and ensure that it is focused on real places and delivery for people.

I welcome the committee’s scrutiny of the bill and look forward to receiving its recommendations in due course.

You are absolutely right. It is down to individuals in local authorities, community groups and organisations across Scotland, including development trusts and other bodies that are doing great work and have a real focus on this. Some of the committee’s witnesses have done a lot of the thinking behind the theory and have learned from international examples. Those individuals are the folks who drive this.

I suppose that we are saying that we have that approach in part, as you rightly identify, but we do not have it to the extent that we could or should have across the whole country. It is about whether the bill gives the impetus to make the issue one that people need to take more seriously, which will then force them to learn from others about best practice.

Sure.

Yes. There are a lot of important things, but that is very important.

You are absolutely right. I do not disagree with any of that. Certain things need to be spoken about in legal language when we are talking about legislation, and other things need to be talked about in quite technical language for good reasons, but we should always focus on the impact on people. To be fair, some of that is about the language that is used and some of it is just about explaining how things work and what things mean. We use a lot of terminology as shortcuts. We might know what the terms mean, but you are right that they might not necessarily make sense to community groups.

When the rubber hits the road, community groups should have access to procurement opportunities and have better support from local authorities and others that can help them to deliver what they are trying to deliver for their communities.