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There are a few things to unpick in that question. It comes back to the point about when I ask people what they mean by “community”. That is an important question, because a lot of people have visualised the conversation happening at a very local level. However, community planning partnerships technically exist at a local authority level, which can—certainly in the bigger local authorities—be a long way from where communities are. Understanding and reflecting on that context is important.

I do not know whether there is anything in the bill that seeks to allow councils to do things relating to the community wealth building agenda that would be problematic and require a general power of competence to be taken forward. It would be interesting to see examples of areas in which councils would like to do things under the community wealth building agenda but think that they are unable to do them within their powers.

The general power of competence is another issue. I would need to look into that. My officials might have more information, but it is obviously not their area. My understanding is that there is an issue with the devolution settlement regarding our ability to give local authorities that power, but I can go and verify that. I do not want to speak incorrectly. There is also a flipside to that power. We have seen examples of local authorities down south getting into things that they probably should not have done and ending up with financial challenges as a consequence of that.

I would be happy to look at that. With this stuff, if you go and look, you will often find the data. People may not have necessarily talked to the right people or asked the right questions, but we can certainly look at some of those points. I might be wrong, but I would be surprised if there is not data on some of the things that you have talked about. However, we can check on some of that.

We can certainly look at that. I get the point that you are making. I suppose that we want to keep the provision as succinct as possible. It does not refer to GDP; it refers to “economic growth”, which is a catch-all term that covers a range of measures of economic activity and economic success. It is important to recognise that. How that is interpreted will depend on who you talk to. However, we can reflect on that.

It is a valid point to consider. There are two lists because the first group would work with the local authority to put the plan together. That group is seen as being at the core of economic activity and would have significant input into what the plans look like. The second group—the longer list—includes the bodies that must have regard to the guidance when they put their plans together. You could say that all public bodies should take it into account when they do so, but maybe that is too wide, although there is a significant number on that list already. You would need to look at the ones that are not included and consider whether there is a case for including them in the “due regard” requirement.

Regarding the public bodies that should be working with local authorities to put the plan together, if a case can be made for them to be involved proactively at that stage—which goes beyond the “due regard” requirement—I think that that could also be considered.

We want to keep everything as simple as possible, which goes back to the principles around the public service reform strategy. We do not want to give people extra work to do if they do not have to do it, and we do not want to create complexity across the system for the sake of it. It is about getting that balance right.

I would need to check the scope in relation to the bodies that we could add to or take off that list, and how we would execute that, but I will let Stephen talk about that.

As you would expect, I will defer to officials on that, because I have not yet seen the report. I intend to look at that issue over the coming weeks to understand the status of the guidance.

The things that you are talking about very much relate to the five pillars of community wealth building, which include finance, workforce, procurement and assets and land. That goes back to the fact that what we are doing is giving impetus to all the other work that is happening in relation to those pillars. There is already funding in place around projects that involve vacant and derelict land, and, of course, the community asset transfer legislation supports that, too. There are already mechanisms that help in that regard, and the bill will not address that per se, but there could be consideration of how other bits of the system could support that. Procurement and the funding for asset transfer are another part of that. Clearly, how much money can be put into that in any given year is budget dependent, but there are funds for that, and I would expect that to continue.

Stephen White might be able to talk about the detail of the vacant and derelict land fund and so on.

We need to unpick that a wee bit. The language that is used is that each local authority and “relevant public bodies” must prepare a community wealth building action plan. The list of relevant public bodies involves big bodies, such as colleges, health boards and economic development agencies. Then there is the list of bodies that must give “due regard”, which is another list of constituted public bodies. However, as you rightly identify, it is not about formalising community engagement in the process. Lorna Slater also made a point about community engagement.

There is a question about how that could be formalised, and I would be interested to take views on it. I will ask officials to comment on whether it has been considered. We must recognise that the level of development of community organisations across the country is variable, whether those are community groups, community councils or whatever, so the process by which we engage them will obviously have to be flexible to take account of that. However, I absolutely take on board your point. If we are going to have something that will work in a local authority area, engagement with those whom we are seeking to support is hugely important. Local authorities could and should take that forward as well, but the picture there will, of course, be variable, too.

Have we done any thinking on that, Stephen?

That is always a danger, and we need work to make sure that it does not happen. Designing the legislation correctly is important in that regard. That goes back to the point that Lorna Slater made about how to measure and evaluate. We are certainly open to considering how that could be done in a way that would work. It is also not just about the local authority and the relevant partners but about all the other public bodies on the longer list and the money that they spend in the local community.

Stephen, do you have any thoughts to add on how we developed our thinking around that?

That is an interesting question. As I mentioned in my opening remarks, there are huge linkages with the wider public service reform agenda, the work on community empowerment, the democracy matters work, the work that we are doing on single authority models and the work to strengthen community planning partnerships. There are a lot of linkages.

The place plans sit within a very formal structure for how local development plans are put together. Communities do not think in silos; for example, they will want to do something because it has a place, economic, social or other benefit. They might want more houses—or they might not; they might want more economic activity and economic development. It is all joined up. One thing that I am keen to explore further over the coming weeks is the relationship between this work and the work that we are doing on community planning partnerships, including how integrated this work should be with the work of those partnerships, for which there is an existing structure.

Through procurement activity, there is a lot of focus on breaking up those big contracts into lots through the work of the supplier development programme. Recently, I was at a very well-attended conference at which there was an emphasis on and momentum behind getting local suppliers engaged in that process. I have also been at round tables with groups of SMEs from around the country to hear at first hand about the challenges that they have in accessing public sector procurement. A lot is already happening in that space.

It then comes down to what is being built. A local authority or health board in a rural area will have its own focus. A large-scale construction project will allow engagement with only a limited number of people, but work is already in place to support how that cascades down through the tiers when it comes to the fair work and local content agenda, and so on. There is a lot in that—and the bill will give it more emphasis—that will help to move things along.