​(CoWBELLS)
Community Wealth Building Evaluation:
Learning Lesson from Scotland

Community wealth building is a people-centred approach to local economic development which redirects wealth back into the local economy, and places control and benefits into the hands of local people. 

 

Community wealth building works in five ways:   

  

1. Promoting local ownership of businesses and encouraging more kinds of businesses to develop locally.  

2. Increasing access to money (credit) to invest in local businesses.   

3. Increasing the number of well-paid jobs with good working conditions.  

4. Encouraging big organisations (like hospitals and universities) to buy more things they need from local businesses.  

5. Using land and property in local areas for the benefit of local people.   

 

North Ayrshire, a local authority in the southwest of Scotland, began community wealth building in 2020. Several other council areas in Scotland are testing it.  

 

Community wealth building is not a traditional public health intervention. It is a broad policy intervention that may have important public health impacts as a by-product of achieving other policy goals related to more inclusive and sustainable local economic development. In Scotland, these goals are being supported by duties on public bodies to produce community wealth building/anchor institutions strategies and by accountability frameworks that incentivise public bodies to promote community wealth building.  

 

This study will look at the impact that community wealth building has had on health, incomes and jobs. It will also look at whether the impact of community wealth building differs between different areas. 

​

You can find out more about the research award here -

Community Wealth Building Evaluation: Learning Lessons from Scotland - a mixed method evaluation of the impact of community wealth building on economic and health outcomes and health inequalities - NIHR Funding and Awards

​