Resources & glossary
The primary sources, a plain-English glossary, and answers to the questions people ask most. Where we cite the law, we link to the source so you can check it yourself.
Last reviewed: June 2026
Legislation & guidance
Primary sources on legislation.gov.uk and gov.scot. Always check the live text for current status and exact section numbers before citing.
Scotland
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Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014
Defines community benefit requirements and the duty to consider them for contracts of £4m+, and contains the sustainable procurement duty.
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Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026
Royal Assent 25 March 2026. Requires community wealth building action plans, with "have regard" duties on a wider set of bodies. (Direct legislation.gov.uk link to be confirmed.)
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Community Empowerment (Scotland) Act 2015
Related framework on community participation and asset transfer. (Verify URL before citing.)
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Public Contracts (Scotland) Regulations 2015
Part of the Scottish procurement framework that sits alongside the 2014 Act. (Verify URL before citing.)
gov.scot guidance
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Community benefits in procurement
Scottish Government statutory guidance and policy on community benefits.
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Public sector procurement (Scotland)
The sustainable procurement duty, the Scottish Model of Procurement and Fair Work First.
England, for contrast
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Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012
England & Wales: a duty to consider economic, social and environmental wellbeing. (Verify URL.)
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PPN 06/20 — the Social Value Model
Requires social value to be explicitly evaluated (min 10% weighting) in central-government procurement; commonly monetised via the National TOM framework.
Glossary
- Community benefit requirement
- A contractual requirement imposed by a contracting authority relating to training and recruitment, the availability of subcontracting opportunities, or otherwise improving the economic, social or environmental wellbeing of the authority's area in a way additional to the main purpose of the contract.
- Sustainable procurement duty
- The duty in the Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 to buy in a way that improves the economic, social and environmental wellbeing of the authority's area, acts to reduce inequality and promotes innovation.
- Community wealth building
- A wider economic approach aimed at keeping more of a place's wealth circulating locally — through progressive procurement, fair work and local supply chains — now placed on a statutory footing by the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026.
- Inclusive growth
- A policy goal: economic growth whose benefits — jobs, skills, opportunity — are shared more fairly across people and places. Community benefits are one of the levers that help deliver it.
- Fair Work First
- The Scottish Government's approach to using public spending, including procurement, to drive fair employment practices such as the real Living Wage and secure, decent work.
- Social value
- The related English model under the Public Services (Social Value) Act 2012 and PPN 06/20: economic, social and environmental wellbeing considered and scored at tender, and commonly monetised — a different mechanism from Scotland's contractual community benefits.
- TOM (National TOM framework)
- A measurement framework, associated with the Social Value Portal, commonly used in England to measure and monetise social value. Referenced here for contrast; it is part of the English social-value model, not Scotland's.
Frequently asked questions
What are community benefits?
Contractual commitments secured through public procurement in Scotland that improve a community beyond the contract's main purpose — things like jobs, apprenticeships, training and local supply-chain opportunities.
What's the law on community benefits in Scotland?
The Procurement Reform (Scotland) Act 2014 requires public bodies to consider community benefit requirements for contracts over £4 million (many apply them below), backed by statutory guidance.
What's the difference between community benefits, social value, community wealth building and sustainable procurement?
Community benefits are the specific contractual deliverables; sustainable procurement and community wealth building are the wider policy frameworks they help deliver; social value is the related English model, scored at tender and monetised.
Who has to deliver community benefits?
Contracting authorities set the requirements; the suppliers and delivery partners awarded the contracts deliver them and provide the evidence.
What counts as a community benefit?
Recruitment and training, apprenticeships, workforce upskilling, local subcontracting, and wider economic, social or environmental wellbeing additional to the contract.
How are community benefits measured and evidenced?
Against the specific commitments in the contract, with evidence collected from suppliers and verified by the buyer — which is the part that's hard to do well at scale.
Why is delivering community benefits difficult?
The commitment is the easy bit; tracking, evidencing and quality-checking delivery across many suppliers, then reporting it, is the real work.
Is the law changing?
Yes — the Community Wealth Building (Scotland) Act 2026 adds new statutory duties on public bodies on top of the 2014 Act.
The tool from the team behind this site
You can't track thousands of community benefits in a spreadsheet.
Securing a commitment is the easy part. Tracking, evidencing and reporting thousands of them across dozens of suppliers — to a standard that holds up — is why councils across Scotland use Cenefits: purpose-built software to do exactly that.