The Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026 (remaining provisions in force 01/10/2026): what it means for procurement

The Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026 (remaining provisions in force 01/10/2026) puts a number on something many councils have talked about for years: how much public contract spend stays with local businesses. Section 5 came into force on 01/10/2026.

Action plans

Under section 5, each local authority must prepare a community wealth building action plan, working jointly with the relevant public bodies for its area, its community wealth building partners. The plan must be prepared within three years of section 5 coming into force, so by 01/10/2029, and published as soon as reasonably practicable after that.

Section 6 allows authorities to work together on a joint plan.

The local spend target

Section 5(8) requires the plan to set an indicative target for the percentage of total expenditure from public contracts entered into by the partners that will go to local economic operators.

Section 8 then requires a report for each five-year reporting period, including the percentage actually achieved.

Who the partners are

The partners include health boards and regional colleges, as well as other bodies listed in the Act. Universities and housing associations are not partners, though their spend still matters to the local economy.

What procurement needs to start recording

To set a credible target, and later to report against it, you need to know what you spend with local suppliers now. That means:

• a consistent definition of local, agreed with your partners
• the location of each supplier, recorded when they are set up
• spend by supplier across all routes, including below the threshold, where much local spend sits

Below-threshold spend is where small local businesses are most often used, and where the records are weakest. Leaving out below-threshold spend makes the baseline incomplete and can distort the local share.

Tenderscape supports local and small-business spend reporting, including below the threshold; your team maintains local definitions and supplier classifications. A Health Check can give you a starting figure, once we have agreed with you what data it uses and how.