Meeting of the Parliament (Hybrid) 25 May 2022
I am delighted to open the first debate on community wealth building to be held in the Scottish Parliament.
Last week, I had the pleasure of meeting Ted Howard at an event hosted in Edinburgh by the Economic Development Association Scotland. Ted is the co-founder and president of the Democracy Collaborative, an economic think tank that is based in the United States. The Democracy Collaborative created the community wealth building approach, with much of the model’s early application and learning taking place in the city of Cleveland, Ohio. That city’s challenge with the impact of deindustrialisation warranted radical and creative thinking. In developing community wealth building, a way was devised to harness the power of public spend and assets to grow new co-operative businesses and create new jobs. In turn, that helped to empower and revitalise people and communities.
Let me be clear: community wealth building is not just for cities; it is an integrated approach to local and regional economic development, suitable for ventilation across Scotland.
Scotland is at the forefront of advancing the model, with interest growing rapidly across the world. In fact, last week, Ted Howard said:
“Your country is fast becoming a global leader in the movement of community wealth building.”
Having noted the model’s origins, I want to set out how the model works and why the Scottish Government and a growing number of Scotland’s local authorities and their partners have adopted it. However, before I do that, it is worth reflecting on the fact that our new national strategy for economic transformation highlights Scotland’s extraordinary economic potential. Crucially, NSET also recognises the challenges that we face as a society and sets out a decade-long plan to develop the wellbeing economy where prosperity and economy share equal billing.