What does this mean for elected members?

A number of councils are already working on inclusive economies and community wealth building approaches, and elected members are involved in shaping these. Elected members can champion these approaches in their own areas by highlighting the significant benefits.

This includes assisting councils to understand where their employees live and helping to target employment opportunities at identified priority areas/groups. Councils should also be encouraged to target support in schools and communities to build skills levels and develop access to future opportunities in areas such as childcare and social care.

This can be supported by encouraging councils and community planning partners to provide greater employment, training and work experience opportunities to target disadvantaged groups/areas. Elected members can encourage their local authorities and partner anchor institutions to become accredited living wage employers.

In addition to employment, elected members can encourage councils to develop procurement strategies that contain explicit measures for the use of community benefit clauses and local supplier development. Inward investment activity can be targeted at developing the local supply base, and a means of monitoring where this spend goes and the impact it has should be identified. In addition, council procurement spend with local companies should be enhanced wherever possible and spend out with the local area should be analysed to identify any additional local opportunities.

Finally, elected members can encourage councils to consider the impact of their assets on inclusive economies and how they can contribute to socio-economic development objectives and build resilient communities. This might mean linking asset management to locality plans and identifying how to support local people to take over council assets for the benefit of their communities.

This can be achieved through promoting community asset transfer and exploring where this can be used to support area-based regeneration objectives, bearing in mind the need to support capacity building for communities currently less able to take on and manage assets.