Building Community Wealth in Scotland: consultation analysis

1. Introduction

Background

This report presents analysis of responses to a public consultation on Community Wealth Building legislation.

The 2021-22 Programme for Government and National Strategy for Economic Transformation (NSET) included a commitment to introduce legislation on Community Wealth Building (CWB) within this Parliamentary session. The 2022-23 Programme for Government included a commitment to hold a consultation on CWB legislation.

The consultation

The aim of the consultation was to inform the development of legislation on CWB. It was launched on 31 January and ran until 9 May 2023 and asked nine questions, all of which had a closed and an open element.

The consultation documents are available on the Scottish Government's website.

Profile of responses

In total 185 responses were received, of which 148 were from groups or organisations and 37 from individual members of the public. Where consent has been given to publish the response, it can be found on the Scottish Government's website.

Respondents were asked to identify whether they were responding as an individual or on behalf of a group or organisation. Group respondents were allocated to one of seven groups by the analysis team. A breakdown of the number of responses received by respondent type is set out below, and a full list of group respondents appended to this report as Annex 1.

In addition to the standard consultation responses, the analysis also covers the feedback from a public webinar attended by more than 150 people.

Analysis and reporting

The report presents a question-by-question analysis of answers to the closed questions and further comments at open questions.

Both the proportion of respondents answering closed questions and the number commenting at open questions varied from question to question. To reflect this differing level of response, tables are presented with different baselines, so the total shown in each case is the total number who answered that question.

Commentary on the closed questions uses full respondent group names, but the analysis of comments uses shortened names in some cases. For example, a Local Authority, Regional Partnership or CPP respondent will be referred to as a Local Authority, and a Community development organisation or company respondent as a Community development respondent.

As with any public consultation exercise, it should be noted that those responding generally have a particular interest in the subject area. Therefore, the views they express cannot necessarily be seen as representative of wider public opinion.