Monday November 17th 2025
Scottish Parliament
Written by Midlothian View Reporter, Liam Eunson
Local spending targets will be crucial to achieving the Scottish Government’s ambitions of building wealth in communities across Scotland, the Federation of Small Businesses (FSB) said today.
MSPs will debate the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Bill on Thursday, which aims to boost local economies by ensuring more money stays and circulates within Scotland’s cities, towns and villages.
A Community Wealth Building (CWB) approach can help to “rewire” the economy by ensuring more public money flows into and stays in local communities, research by the Centre for Local Economic Strategies (CLES) for FSB Scotland shows.
However, FSB has warned that, to be truly effective, the Bill should be strengthened by including statutory targets for procurement spending with local and small firms and standardised rules for reporting on that spend.
Stacey Dingwall, FSB Scotland’s Head of Policy and External Affairs, said:
“The principle behind Community Wealth Building is sound – keeping more of Scotland’s public money circulating in Scotland’s local economies. But to make that vision a reality, we need firm targets for local spending and reliable data to measure progress.
“Without clear benchmarks and transparency, there’s a real risk the Bill won’t deliver the change towns, villages and local businesses expect.”
The Scottish Parliament’s Economy and Fair Work Committee last month supported FSB’s key recommendations that there should be targets for increasing local authority spending with small and local businesses, alongside measures to ensure councils collect clear and consistent data on such spending.
The importance of local spending targets is highlighted by the continuing obstacles small businesses find in bidding for public contracts. Nearly three quarters of small businesses who bid for public contracts find the process “complex and challenging”, according to FSB Scotland’s Big Small Business Survey 2025.
Ms Dingwall added:
“Scotland’s small businesses are the backbone of local economies – they create jobs, support community life and reinvest locally. Setting ambitious, realistic local spending targets would send a powerful message that the Scottish Parliament is serious about delivering wealth for communities, and not just contracts to major corporations.”
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