As part of Challenge Poverty Week, the Poverty Alliance is demanding better for communities and volunteers, with fair funding for third sector organisations. Mia Duncan, Community Wealth Building Project Officer, discusses how community wealth building can help make that ambition a reality.
No child should grow up in poverty. And yet in Scotland today, nearly one in four children do (JRF, 2025). This is a grave injustice and a powerful indication that our economic system urgently needs to change.
This Thursday, as part of Challenge Poverty Week, the focus is on fair funding. The Poverty Alliance is demanding better for communities and volunteers, with fair funding for third sector organisations (see full briefing). Community Wealth Building (CWB) provides a powerful means of making that demand a reality. By reshaping local economies so that wealth and power remain within communities, and in particular through the finance pillar.
CWB is a progressive approach to local economic development. Its aim is simple but ambitious: to restructure the economy so that those experiencing the harshest inequalities have more ownership, more security, and a greater share in the economy.
The Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill, which is approaching the end of Stage 1 in parliament, represents a significant opportunity to turn this vision into reality. We must ensure that it does not become a tick-box exercise. Its potential must be realised for those experiencing the deepest poverty, otherwise the transformational impact could be lost.
CWB challenges poverty through five interconnected pillars.
- It keeps wealth local, by directing public and institutional spending to local and socially responsible businesses. This creates good jobs and reinvests money back into communities.
- It tackles low pay and job insecurity by promoting fair wages, stable work, and inclusive hiring practices that lift people out of poverty.
- It expands community and worker ownership, through co-operatives and social enterprises, so that profits stay within communities instead of leaving them.
- It challenges inequality through land and property, ensuring buildings and spaces are used for community benefit including being transferred into community ownership.
- It redirects financial resources, supporting community banks, credit unions, and local investment. This empowers people, community groups and small enterprises, and reduces reliance on exploitative finance.
This final pillar - finance - is pivotal. It links directly to today’s theme of fair funding for community groups, third sector organisations, and small enterprises. The Economy and Fair Economy and Fair Work Committee’s Stage 1 recommended the guidance issued by Scottish Ministers should include clear expectations for engaging third sector interfaces (TSIs), development trusts, and similar organisations from the outset of CWB plans [113]. Early involvement of these groups will help shape and drive the CWB process to focus on those experiencing the greatest inequalities.
What's more, the Economy and Fair Work Committee’s Stage 1 Report highlighted that there needs to be greater clarity around the roles and responsibilities of public bodies in supporting the finance pillar. The Committee has called for clear, practical guidance on how CWB Partnerships can make the finance pillar work in practice. This should include defined roles for local authority pension schemes, greater support for credit unions, and encouragement for the use of community shares and bonds to boost local investment. These measures are crucial for increasing the flow of resources into communities and giving them the financial tools to deliver the essential services they do.
With the right support, the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill offers a huge opportunity to challenge poverty. Not only by transforming our economy into one that is fairer and more inclusive, but also by increasing community investment through the finance pillar.