Fife Council signs off next phase of community wealth building

This is about growing the local economy in ways that mean more wealth is generated, circulated and retained in communities for the benefit of all.

Last week members of the Cabinet Committee heard about progress with deploying the approach and approved the strategy for the next phase of activities, which will help embed new practices into the council’s - and other organisations’ - day to day work.

The aim is to help tackle long-standing economic challenges and ultimately improve the distribution of wealth.

Councillor Altany Craik, spokesperson for finance, economy and strategic planning, said: “This is about reinforcing a new way of thinking about projects, services and investments. We’re considering how the public sector can work much more closely with the private, third and community sectors, to help generate, circulate and keep more wealth in our communities and local areas.

“We’ve made some progress since the largest and most influential organisations around Fife signed up to a charter last April describing our joint commitment to this.

“For example, we’ve increased our direct spending with local businesses and worked on developing local supply chains so that more Fife businesses benefit indirectly from council contracts.

"And we’ve been testing alternative approaches to recruitment to try and remove the barriers that continually keep some people out of employment.

“We’ve agreed a clear set of activities to take this approach further. This is the start of bolder efforts to redesign existing policy and practice, systems and processes, and we’ve asked for progress to be reported back to the Cabinet Committee every six months.

"There are lots of different ways for organisations and local people to work together to build community wealth. We’re committed to thinking differently about everything we do and making better links between all the work that goes on around Fife, to try and get more local benefits from every public pound.”