Community wealth building consultation

This is the view from the Angus Community Planning Partnership. ngus Community Planning Partnership includes the following:

Angus Council
Angus Health and Social Care Partnership
NHS Tayside
ANGUSalive
Dundee & Angus College
Voluntary Action Angus
Police Scotland
Scottish Fire and Rescue
TACTRAN
Skills Development Scotland
Scottish Enterprise
Department for Work and Pensions
Dundee & Angus Chamber of Commerce

The Partnership chose option A as they felt this would:-

- Have minimal Disruption of current reporting arrangements

- Link in with the new Place Planning work to give the local perspective

- Link to the new Economic Strategy being developed for Angus which also picks up the principles of CWB

In Angus there is a CWB working group now leading on the work underway - this group will also act as the monitoring body to ensure the work is done.

An update will be provided as part of the Community Plan Annual Performance Report in September

Providing statutory guidance always ensures there is buy in and active participation

Community Wealth Building is underway in Angus however to date any work relating to the principles haven’t been specifically badged as Community Wealth Building. The new 5-year council plan and 8-year Community Plan reference the work underway and provide governance to collate the impact.

Community Wealth Building will be tabled as part of the first Community Planning Strategic Group thematic sessions focused on ‘Caring for our economy’

Through procurement a community benefit officer will also cover an element of circular economy and supporting the CWB processes once the post is in place.

Economic Development have a consultant in developing the new economic strategy which will include some elements of CWB 31st March

Implementing any new policy or legislative duty requires resource in terms of staffing and time. The new Child Poverty Local Action Plan came with some initial funding to embed it which was very welcome and enabled a more long term resource to be put in place

Our partners have flagged that a lot of the actions outlined are being delivered within other pieces of work for example food growing and food related projects are covered within the duty to provide a Food Growing Strategy [encouraging public kitchens, including school canteens, to source more
food produced by local businesses and organic producers]

The action stating 'to base public sector capital and revenue funding decisions on targeted social, economic and environmental outcomes' is very much part of the Community Planning philosophy and in Angus has been central to the service design work

A lot of considerations are also included under the Fairer Scotland Duty which ensure best value and socio economic considerations are taken.

Overall there is a plea to connect policy and legislation wherever possible

Enabling Procurement practices to seek even more community benefits has shown to be a good way of delivering more value into the communities. The new work around community wish lists has been very innovative and something that could be developed further.

Creating meaningful labour market opportunities in local communities is very much part of the Employability strategy so could be covered under this rather than being a new element. Partners have advised the employability landscape is already extremely complex so a ratification of laws or streamlining would be useful.

A lot of these elements have fallen under community empowerment act and a key challenge is around land ownership and historic deeds. This is a massive task and to date Local Authorities have struggled to find the resource to progress is further.

Partners were very keen to see this work progressed and it is something that is part of the new Economic Development Strategy for Angus which again is a partnership document. A lot of work has also been done around social enterprise and how to encourage more growth in the third sector.

Partners were unsure about the impact of this element due to the fall of the credit union in Angus and issues around sustainable models.

Match Trading is a model currently being explored with School of Social Entrepreneurs which could provide much needed finance for business to develop and grow.